Are Killer Robots The Future Of All Warfare?

Human rights activists and technology specialists are engaged in a heated debate about whether or not unmanned armed robots should one day be used in combat.

Also known as killer robots, the machines have the ability to select and kill targets without any control from humans, Live Science reported.

Supporters say killer robots are the next step in the evolution of warfare. Ronald Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology, told Live Science humans have always invented weapons to limit their direct contact in battles, such as arrows and guns.

"There will always be a human in the kill chain with these lethal autonomous systems," Arkin said.

Arkin believes killer robots can be programmed to make sound, moral decisions when it comes to choosing a target. He is already conducting research on a prototype, called the Ethical Governor, which would police machine actions around the world, Live Science reported.

Unmanned drones already exist and have been used to carry out airstrikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, civilians sometimes end up being unintended casualties. Critics say the machines are deadly and cannot take the place of ethical human judgment.

There is no "meaningful human control" with killer robots, Peter Asaro, a philosopher of science at The New School, told Live Science. Using "computers and algorithms and mechanical processes," to decide to kill humans is "fundamentally immoral," and goes against International Humanitarian Law.

Also known as the law of armed conflict, IHL "is a set of rules which seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict," the IHL website said. It "restricts the means and methods of warfare."

When it comes to judging the severity of force to be used, killer robots will never become more intelligent than the human brain, one supporter said.

"It's very aspirational to think that we'll get a drone that can pick a known individual out of a crowd," Mary Cummings, director of MIT's Human and Automation Laboratory, told Live Science. "That's not going to happen for a long, long, long, long time,"

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