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Prominent Smart People Agree Autonomous Killer Robots are Bad, Urge World to Agree

By on July 27, 2015

A mass of AI and robotics researchers have penned and signed an open letter, which was presented today at 2015’s International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence, warning of an impending “third revolution in warfare,” or the ubiquitous and amoral appropriation and use of autonomous and lethal killing machines. Reality is catching up to science fiction once again, and these and many other prominent intellectual leaders have come together to make their case that the world governments should, instead of waiting to react, stamp out the potential horrors of such a reality before it can even arise.

Elon Musk Stephen Hawking Autonomous Killer Robots Letter

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak headline the list of signatories, which is fast growing yet. The message is a strong one, if terrifying to fully consider. Here’s how it opens:

“Autonomous weapons select and engage targets without human intervention. They might include, for example, armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate people meeting certain pre-defined criteria, but do not include cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which humans make all targeting decisions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has reached a point where the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.”

It goes on to draw parallels between the agreements world governments have made about biological and chemical weapons and what the signatories expect to happen on this issue. They call an AI-driven arms race, like the proliferation of nuclear technology, an inevitability barring meaningful intercession.

Read the full letter here, where you can also add your name to the list should you so feel inclined. And I checked; James Cameron, he of the original anti-autonomous killer robots message, hasn’t yet signed. Yet.

Forgive me for the joke. I just wanted to feel safe again.

About Trevor Ruben

Though I contribute to many online publications on a regular basis, including The Checkout, the crux of my writing lies in video games. When not writing, I'm often streaming a variety of games on Twitch.

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