A British academic recently attended talks in Geneva involving the United Nations in an effort to persuade members to outlaw autonomous robots in warfare.
Dr Steve Wright, of Leeds School of Social Sciences at Leeds Beckett University said: “The world is watching these processes intensely since the stakes are so high. The rate of technological innovation is continuing at a pace. The urgency to achieve a ban cannot be overstressed.
“Programmes such as unreliable face recognition, geo-location and even heartbeat detection targeting migrants will move us into an era when weapons not only kill humans at an unprecedented scale but can hunt humans in the most reprehensible fashion. In that context, human rights law will be demoted to a 20th century luxury. We cannot afford such an arms race and its consequences.”
A board member of ICRAC – the International Committee for Robot Arms Control – Dr Wright was among those calling on a ban on so-called killer robots – fully autonomous weapons systems such as tanks, planes, ships and guns that once activated, would supposedly select and attack targets without human intervention.
During the talks – the sixth Convention of Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) – the US and Russia were among countries that voted not to begin dialogue that could lead to a ban on the weapons systems.
Instead, the group, which included Israel, Australia and South Korea, argued that states have not yet agreed on a shared definition of a lethal autonomous weapons system.
A majority of the 88 states supported the proposed ban, but under the convention’s rules, all those attending had to agree. Instead, they pledged to continue to explore options.
