On 24 October, journalist Edith Lederer published a very interesting article on military news site Military Times, in which she discusses an issue that has been in the public eye in recent days: autonomous weapons.

The article cites the opinion of renowned Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams, who affirms that these weapons “should not be allowed to exist”.

“[Autonomous weapons] are crossing a moral and ethical Rubicon and should not be allowed to exist and be used in combat or in any other way”, Ms Williams said. For this reason, in 2013, she started a campaign called “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots”, which now has more than 130 supporter groups in 60 countries. The campaign is trying to pressure governments “so we don’t see these weapons unleashed on the world”.

“A machine is not a moral anything", the Nobel Peace laureate expressed. "So, allowing machines, in theory through algorithms, decide what they will target and what they will attack is one of the huge reasons why we consider to be crossing the Rubicon, and grossly unethical and immoral", she added.

“Machines should be in the service of human beings" she commented. "Human beings should not be in the service of machines", she continued.

Along these lines, Liz O’Sullivan, technical director of Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, explained that autonomous weapons are unsafe, but they do exist. “There is absolutely nothing stopping a nation or any group of people from creating their own version of fully autonomous weapon systems today”, she asserted. “They wouldn't work very well. They might not be safe, but they certainly do exist”, she claimed.

“There are autonomous boats that will potentially have the ability to fire, there are autonomous drones... and also vehicles”, Ms O’Sullivan mentioned. "The easiest technological problem to solve is through the drones, so that's most likely what we'll see first, and the rest as technology advances”, she commented.

“These killer robots... aren't a future problem. They're possible today, and they're something that we need to work to control right now”, she warned.

Draw your own conclusions…

For more information: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/10/24/nobel-laureate-wants-to-kill-off-killer-robots/