Three days after the publication of the Human Rights Watch Report: Losing our Humanity: The case against killer robots, the US Department of Defence issued a directive that gave clearance for the development of autonomous weapons: weapons that once launched can select and engage targets without further intervention. Here is my response on the relationship [...]

This is a link to an article that I wrote for the Guardian Newspaper in August 2012 which I think is becoming more relevant as we progress towards a campaign to stop killer robots. It describes the progression from current drone technology to the new fully autonomous weapons that are described in the Human Rights [...]

On June 2nd 2012, ICRAC is tagged in a lengthy article by The Economist, with a quote be ICRAC’s Juergen Altmann: Pressure will grow for armies to automate their robots if only so machines can shoot before being shot, says Jürgen Altmann of the Technical University of Dortmund, in Germany, and a founder of the [...]

On Sunday 16 January 2011, the Guardian reports on the multi-purpose use of drones, from police enforcement to paparazzi and, obviously, in war zones. In this regard… Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at Sheffield University, told the Royal Society meeting there are credible estimates that one in three casualties from drone attacks [...]

Are We Giving Our Military Machines Too Much Power?, Popular science asks, quoting ICRAC’s Noel Sharkey: As quickly as countries build these systems, they want to deploy them, says Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield in England: “There’s been absolutely no international discussion. It’s all going forward [...]

Sunday 21 November 2010, the Observer reports on the technological development in unmanned systems, quoting ICARC’s Noel Sharkey. He … … says it is impossible for autonomous robots today to distinguish reliably between civilians and combatants, a cornerstone of international humanitarian law. He also believes robots lack the subtle judgment to adhere to another humanitarian [...]

On Thursday 16 September 2010, the Guardian reports on ICRAC’s meeting in Berlin on the rapid proliferation of military drone planes and armed robots and possible arms control measures to curb this development, quoting ICRAC’s Steve Wright: “We need a new treaty to limit proliferation. All the arms fairs now are selling UAVs. It’s naive [...]

The German technology website “heise online” reports on ICRAC’s meeting in Berlin. The full text – in German – of the article can be found here. ICRAC’s Berlin Statement can be found here.