UN to Debate Use of Fully Autonomous Weapons, New Report Released

concertina226 (2447056) writes "The United Nations will debate the use of killer robots for the first time at the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) this week, but human rights activists are calling for the robots to be banned. Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic have published a new report entitled 'Shaking the Foundations: The Human Rights Implications of Killer Robots', which calls for killer robots to be banned to prevent a potential arms race between countries. Killer robots, or fully autonomous weapons, do not yet exist but would be the next step after remote-controlled armed drones used by the US military today. Fully autonomous weapons would have the ability to identify and fire on targets without human intervention, putting compliance with international humanitarian laws in doubt. Among the problems with killer robots highlighted in the report is the risk of criminal liability for a military officer, programmer or weapons manufacturer who created or used an autonomous weapon with intent to kill. If a robot killed arbitrarily, it would be difficult to hold anyone accountable."

Comments

Re:Arms race

[CreatureComfort]

Well, you make his point eloquently.

The holocaust was conducted clearly by an advanced state, signatory to many treaties and international obligations and "laws", none of which served to make any difference whatsoever, when that state decided they didn't care what the rest of the world thought.

But why stop there? Rwanda, Stalin's purges, China's Cultural Revolution, Kashmir, Iraq-Iran, until the U.S. got actively involved, all the U.S. wars against brown people, etc., etc., etc. When has international law, regulations, or even opinion, ever changed the conduct of an aggressor nation when they decided to go to war? The reason nukes haven't been used since Nagasaki is only because everyone who has them is afraid if they used them in aggression, it would trigger a much higher escalation, and has nothing to do with any treaties, laws, or world opinions.