Beware the Killer Robots

Author Toby Walsh, Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW in Sydney, observes that autonomous weapons have moved from science fiction to become a clear and present danger. But there is still time to stop them:

In July 2015, thousands of researchers working in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics united to issue an open letter calling for a pre-emptive ban on such weapons. I was one of the organisers of the letter, and I have spoken several times at the United Nations to reinforce our call for a ban.

The reason I have been motivated to do this is simple. If we don’t get a ban in place, there will be an arms race. And the end point of this race will look much like the dystopian future painted by Hollywood movies like The Terminator.

In fact, the arms race is already underway, although it is largely undeclared. For example, the US Department of Defense has a US$18 billion weapons program in development and most of them are autonomous.

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10:07 pm on April 13, 2017