Military experts call autonomous weapons or autonomous weapons systems (AWS) types of weapons that do everything themselves: they find a target and complete a task without human intervention. One of the most famous, so far only in science fiction films and AWS books, are the so-called "killer robots".
Elon Musk and more than a hundred other robotics experts write about the deadly threat from killer robots in an open warning letter to the UN. Musk, Mustafa Suleiman, the creator of the AI company DeepMind Technologies, which is now owned by Google, and 114 experts from 26 countries warn the UN that the arms race in AWS could open a Pandora's box, which can cause unpredictable and very great harm to humanity. They demand a ban on the development and implementation of autonomous weapons systems.
All signers are well versed in the matter because they work in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). They are confident that the introduction of killer robots into the armaments of the armies of developed countries will have the same significance for military affairs as the invention of gunpowder and nuclear weapons, which they call the first and second revolutions in military affairs. AWS, they believe, will be the third revolution.
“Once brought to a high level, autonomous weapons systems will bring military conflicts to a level of magnitude that humanity has never seen before,” the collective letter says. - Moreover, it will happen with great speed. AWS can become a weapon of terror, a weapon that despots and terrorists will use against civilians …"
The authors of the letter warn about a still hypothetical weapon that can destroy people without human intervention. The day is near when it will become a harsh reality from the category of fiction and will force us to seek answers to many difficult questions, ranging from the safe management of such systems to moral and ethical problems caused by the "iron" cruelty and unpredictability of deadly machines.
Musk, with supporters who share his stance on the dangers of AWS to humanity, emphasize that there is no time for reflection and discussion and that it is necessary to act immediately. "We have very little time," they write at the UN. "Once the Pandora's box is open, it will be very difficult to close it."
The time for writing an open letter was not chosen by chance. Experts wanted to coincide with the start of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Melbourne. It was supposed to open on Monday 21 August, but the UN decided to postpone it until November.
At the end of an open letter, Elon Musk and his colleagues call on the UN to redouble its efforts to create a strategy by November to protect the planet from killer robots.
Earlier, Musk himself warned about the dangers of work on artificial intelligence as such, since systems based on it can get out of human control. At the same time, cars with Tesla electric motors are already driving on the roads of the United States in an unmanned mode, which is not without incidents.
