Ethical Technology

As robots become more complex, will it be possible for robots to actually become more ethical than humans on the battlefield? Should they be used to monitor soldiers and officers and report war crimes? Should they have the ability to not obey an order they deem unethical?

I don't think that a robot should ever be given this role to judge humans. Sometimes an officer will know that he has to get his soldiers to do something, despite the risk, while a robot may be programmed never to attempt the feat. Humans can make judgments calls and adjust to the situation in ways that robots wouldn't understand. Also, if the soldiers are being watched, they will be more hesitant and less willing to try different things, which could meant their death and/or the failure of the mission. I think robots should have ethics programmed into it, but should never judge a human and should always have an override button.

I actually agree that robots should never be able to judge a person, and should always defer to his or her judgement.
In my opinion, there is no set law of universal ethics that always applies. Every situation is different and contains certain nuances that determine the morality of it. Do you sit there and program EVERY SINGLE situation into a robot. There are just some things that you can't program. There are also some things you just can't teach a people. Ethics are just intuitive and vary depending on the details of every situation. For this reason, I think that robots are incapable of dealing with ethics on their own.