Some of the world’s smartest people are worried about killer robots
Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have joined with 1,000 of some of the world's smartest people in warning of the potential rise of killer robots being used on the battlefield.
"If any major military power pushes ahead with [artificial intelligence] weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable," reads an open letter from more than 1,000 AI and robotics researchers. "And the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow."
The Guardian reports:
The letter, presented at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was signed by Tesla's Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis and professor Stephen Hawking along with 1,000 AI and robotics researchers.The letter states: "AI technology has reached a point where the deployment of [autonomous weapons] 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."
Artificial intelligence on the battlefield poses many difficult questions, according to the open letter. Besides the possibility of SkyNet, some of the concerns posed by the letter are:
- A military arms race akin to nuclear weapons in which nations build smarter and more powerful robots
- Killer robots falling into the hands of terrorists
- Dictators using such robots for genocide and other violent campaigns
You can read the full letter here
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