Last year, Stewart Roussel, engineer-programmer at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote an open letter with an appeal for the banning of “lethal Autonomous weapons”. For those who are far from military-industrial complex, it may seem a bit far-fetched and premature fear, like calls to ban phasers from star Trek or the Death Star. However, the reality suggests otherwise.
Mankind has always sought to automate the military. For example, mines are kind of robots, though, and protozoa. Missile heat-seeker is smarter, although not much. Today, there are already fully Autonomous machine-killers: for example, the South Korean Super aEgis II is able to recognize people and to aim at them. Before you take your shot from his 12.7 mm machine gun, it requires the permission of a live operator — but this is more etiquette than technical requirements.
Russell writes that “Autonomous weapons will become the “Kalashnikov” of the future — cheap and available”. And it will completely change the rules of warfare.
“Smart weapons will be able to change the scale of influence of small groups of people in the world, he writes. — It can cause damage comparable to nuclear weapons, with much less financial cost and infrastructure requirements”.
Proponents of smart weapons indicate some of the advantages of Autonomous killing machines: the use of robots in war would significantly reduce casualties. However, for the signatories of the letter of Roussel 20 thousand people (including most scientists) disadvantages of smart weapons far outweigh its advantages. Later this year, Russell along with his supporters is going to seek changes in international law, similar to the prohibition on the use of biological weapons. The discussion will take place in the UN and World economic forum.
After all, if ever fully Autonomous robot-killer, there’s no turning back.
According to the materials of Popular Science