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10 Things You Should Know About Killer Robots
1. What are Killer Robots? Actually, pretty much what they sound like. These are autonomous weapons systems that could kill human beings without any human involvement in the critical functions of target selection and the employment of lethal force. Lethal autonomous weapons systems could take many physical forms, and could also operate in large numbers and distributed architectures. The emergence …
The military, AI, and why it’s time to worry
“We are not talking about walking, talking terminator robots that are about to take over the world; what we are worried about is much more looming: conventional weapons systems with autonomy. They are beginning to sneak in.”
The AI arms race: The Cold War mindset returns
Concerns about an artificial-intelligence (AI) arms race between advanced militaries have been raised by many experts and analysts, including SpaceX founder Elon Musk and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Scientists and engineers are also becoming increasingly vocal in discussions on the weaponization of AI, urging governments to develop regulations to prohibit certain applications of AI in weapons technology. But they …
Blurring the lines: Virtual, mixed reality and the future of warfare
In early October 2017, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and colleague Rachel Franklin sat in offices in California wearing headsets while they toured a video by National Public Radio of hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico using virtual-reality application Spaces. In a live stream, cartoon characters Zuckerberg and Franklin could be seen touring the footage of the island. The broadcast created a large backlash. …
The Right to Peace: Stop Killer Robots
The theme for the 2018 International Day of Peace (Friday, Sept. 21) is The Right to Peace – The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on Dec. 10, 1948, to recognize “the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human …
Human-less or human more?
Recently, Lockheed Martin, the U.S. aerospace and defence company, released a promotional video of its work on autonomous systems. The main message: “The future of autonomy isn’t human-less. It’s human more.” Published in The Ploughshares Monitor Volume 39 Issue 2 Summer 2018 by Branka Marijan Doublethink lives on This formulation brings to mind George Orwell. In his novel 1984, Newspeak, the language …
Project Ploughshares: Our 2018 Plan
Last year was remarkably active for virtually all Project Ploughshares program areas—and 2018 is turning out to be at least as busy. From unscrupulous arms transfers that fuel human rights violations to troubling forced migration patterns that continue to test the international community’s ability to respond, from efforts to proactively regulate the development and deployment of autonomous weapons systems to …
The case for the Petrov rule
On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a 44-year-old lieutenant-colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, made a critical decision (Chan 2017). Petrov was on duty at Serpukhov-15, a control centre outside Moscow that monitored the Soviet Union’s Oko early-warning satellite system, which identified ballistic missile launches, mainly by the United States. The Soviet Union/Russia used these satellites until 2015. Petrov …