UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon “energized” by students’ “serious discussions” on autonomous weapons systems In less than two weeks, diplomats from around the world will gather at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss potential global regulations on “lethal autonomous weapons systems” that would be able to select and attack targets without direct human control. But […] Continue Reading

Ten year old Bethany Clifford-Tait is concerned about a future that includes autonomous weapons systems aka ‘killer robots’. Such were her worries that she wrote to the producers of the oldest and most popular BBC children’s programme Blue Peter to ask them to spread the word to other children across the country in one of […] Continue Reading

ICRAC welcomes the decision by the 2014 UN CCW High Contracting Parties Meeting to keep discussing “lethal autonomous weapon systems” (LAWS). From the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots Website: The decision is an important acknowledgement of the legal, technical, ethical, operational, and societal concerns that have been raised. The broad consensus expressed for continuing the talks shows […] Continue Reading

Hi-Tech Canadian Robotics company, Clearpath, today issued a statement pledging not to manufacture autonomous weapons systems despite their commercial advantage and they urged other companies to follow suit: “those who might see business opportunities in this technology to seek other ways to apply their skills and resources for the betterment of humankind.” ICRAC applauds the […] Continue Reading

The short answer is no. But Russia is testing and may deploy at its ICBM bases a lethal mobile system which has “automatic and semi-automatic control modes.” Additionally, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has recently called for “robotic systems that are fully integrated in the command and control system, capable not only to gather intelligence […] Continue Reading

International Community Must Act Now to Ensure Combat Will Never Be Outsourced to “Killer Robots”! — I am speaking on behalf of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), a founding NGO member of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Since its establishment in 2009, ICRAC has urged the international community to discuss the […] Continue Reading

Over the last couple of months, lethal autonomous robots (LARs) went from a sidelined issue to not only a hotly and widely debated topic but most importantly an official item of United Nations (UN) arms control diplomacy. This post provides an overview over recent media coverage as well as events and statements given at the UN. The […] Continue Reading

Decision to apply violent force must not be delegated to machines! More than 270 engineers, computing and artificial intelligence experts, roboticists, and professionals from related disciplines are calling for a ban on the development and deployment of weapon systems that make the decision to apply violent force autonomously, without any human control. In a statement […] Continue Reading

One of Joshua Foust’s assertions in his debate with Heather Roff was that making weapons autonomous was necessary in order to secure them against the threat of hacking. I posted a response after Foustreiterated this surprising argument, and provided a few scraps of pseudo-evidence to support it, in an article which seems to have gone semi-viral on the internet–launching what seems […] Continue Reading

Naval Postgraduate School CRUSER Robo-Ethics Continuing Education Series (RECES) Robo-Ethics Panelist Debate (Part 3) Continue Reading