Campaigners Call On The United Nations To Ban Killer Robots

An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (US Air Force / Tech. Sgt. Erik Gudmundson)

Campaigners have ramped up their calls for the UN to ban the creation of “killer robots”, capable of making their own combat decisions without human intervention.

The idea of killer robots like the Terminator, or killer AI systems like Skynet, that take human matters into their own hands may seem relatively far-fetched to some, but although neither form of weapon has been created yet, movements like the aptly-named Campaign to Stop Killer Robots want the United Nations to take action now.

The annual meeting of the Convention on Conventional Weapons is due to take place in Geneva on Friday and France is calling for nations to consider an international agreement not to develop fully autonomous drones, which could select and eliminate targets without waiting for human intervention.

The Convention’s purpose is to ban or restrict the use of weapons that are “considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately” and countries will vote at the meeting on whether to add questions about fully autonomous weapons to its slate for consideration next year...

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