Gadgetory

utter the words killer robot and it's almost impossible not to picture the Terminator the time-traveling autonomous murder machine that absolutely will not stop until its target is destroyed the t800 is the work of science fiction but the campaign to stop killer robots a coalition of more than 50 non-governmental organizations believes nations must act now to ensure a machine is never given the choice to take a human life the campaign is trying to get an international prohibition legally binding to stop autonomous weapon systems production development and use of these an autonomous weapon system is a system a weapon that once it's been activated or launched decides to select its own target subtract some selects targets and kills them without further human intervention so our aim is to prevent the kill decision being given to machine in other words we don't want machines to be delegated with the decision to kill launched two years ago the campaign to stop killer robots says we're all too close to giving already advanced robotic weaponry the responsability of killing campaign coordinator the Human Rights Watch has previously pointed to hardware such as u.s. anti-missile tech South Korean century robots all the UK's prototype unmanned Taranis aircraft as examples of the kind of systems that could be made fully autonomous letting a computer pull the trigger a scenario that the campaign says would be pragmatically and morally problematic can they weigh up the advantage against the potential harm to civilians is that is that possible who would be responsible for for a strike when essentially it's the machine that's been pre-programmed to pull the trigger do we want to live in a world where we have given machines the power to take human lives without a human being even being there to pull the trigger when the target is being attacked as technology advances AI is poised to become a bigger part of our lives from everyday gadgets like robot vacuum cleaners to emerging tech like Google's self-driving cars robotics professor KNOLLE Sharkey is keen to point out however that the camp gripe is with autonomous machines that kill not with AI in general if they developed autonomous bomb disposal robots that would be a great technology but there aren't the billions of dollars going into that that there will be into autonomous weapons so the only thing we want to stop is the kill decision being made by machine all the other technological developments before that point are fine with us the campaign hopes that the world's nations can agree to ban killer robots akin to international agreements on other types of warfare for instance chemical weapons that kind of global agreement is a huge task but those involved say they are making progress so since the campaign's launched in 2013 the United Nations body tasked with banning weapons has taken it up it's on the agenda they've had two international discussions on the topic and they will decide at the end of this year whether to continue discussions or to move into a negotiating mode towards an international treaty that's what we're pushing for and we think it's inevitable it's almost a hundred years since the term robots was first introduced and humankind's fascination with the idea of a deadly automaton has never waned from theater to the silver screen we get a giddy thrill at the notion of our own mechanical creations getting out of hand turning against the human masters it's all rather poetic when you see it on screen but the killing machines of real-life are more mundane and a lot more frightening the real ones are worse than many ways they will look like tanks they will look like ships battleships they will look with jet fighters they may look a bit like some futuristic like something Batman would fly but that's what they'll look like it's not so long ago that people didn't know what drones were but the idea of drones flying around firing missiles was totally you know crazy but now it's suddenly completely you know and it sort of almost inevitable part of conflict and as I think we we need to be aware that actually what we're looking at systems that are on the brink of emerging and we need to draw the line now otherwise we're going to be sleepwalking into a system where we have fully autonomous weapons and we can't turn back do you agree with the campaign's goals or do you have some reservations let us know and stay tuned to seen it