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"Killer Robots" to be Focus of New UN-Hosted Talks

posted by Snow on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the pew-pew-pew dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for takyon

Inside the United Nations' effort to regulate autonomous killer robots

Amandeep Gill has a difficult job, though he won't admit it himself. As chair of the United Nations' Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) meetings on lethal autonomous weapons, he has the task of shepherding 125 member states through discussions on the thorny technical and ethical issue of "killer robots" — military robots that could theoretically engage targets independently. It's a subject that has attracted a glaring media spotlight and pressure from NGOs like Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, which is backed by Tesla's Elon Musk and Alphabet's Mustafa Suleyman, to ban such machines outright.

[...] The CCW will meet for the third time for discussions on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs), from August 27th through 31st, after which it will likely issue a report and decide upon continuing discussions next year. The Verge spoke to Gill about Hollywood depictions of dangerous machines, weapons that already exist or are in development, and a potential ban on killer robots.

Also at CBS.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:38PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:38PM (#727556)

    If we can build killer robots, then it becomes unethical to send our human soldiers into combat.

    We therefore must build enough killer robots that there is no chance we'd have to risk our human soldiers in World War III.

    Presume that World War III is big. We fight China and Russia together, or we fight an EU that has been unified and now speaks Arabic, or something similarly dreadful.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:42PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:42PM (#727557)

    The real ethical issue why humanity is at such an advanced stage yet thinks WW3 is inevitable. Thankfuy most are still hoping to avoid it, but maybe nothing else will get the absurdity to really sink in.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:46PM (#727561)

      History

      And who says humanity is at such an advanced stage? Still ~100% primate animal