The danger of easily replicable technology that could search and kill
humans based on “pre-defined criteria.
DANGER WILL ROBINSON - Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk,
Steve Wozniak, and hundreds of scientists want to keep AI out of our weapons
Quarz.com
Maybe we should take the
warnings of RoboCop more seriously. Famous scientists, engineers, and businessmen are
banding together to call for a ban on autonomous weapons development.
In an
open letter published today by the Future of Life Institute—a research group
concerned with making sure humanity stays in charge of our technological
future—Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Steve Wozniak, along with hundreds of
other researchers, signed on to the idea that “starting a military AI arms race
is a bad idea.”
The letter questions the
idea of researching technology that can be used to remotely kill humans without
anyone telling the weapon to do so. While we have aerial technology today that
lets us kill someone in the Middle East from a shipping container outside of
Las Vegas, this is not what the Institute is concerning itself with. The letter
says its focus is not on “cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which
humans make all targeting decisions.”
Rather, the institute is
worried about easily replicable technology that could search and kill humans
based on “pre-defined criteria.”
Unlike nuclear weapons,
[autonomous weapons] require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they
will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to
mass-produce. It will only be a matter of time until they appear on the black
market and in the hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control
their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc.
Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilizing
nations, subduing populations and selectively killing a particular ethnic
group.
While current autonomous
technologies are struggling to stand
on their own two feet and learn defensive driving techniques, the institute says
military technology that could lead to robots killing humans could be “feasible
within years, not decades.”
The three famous engineers
also signed
a broader open letter from the institute in January about making sure research into AI
is rigidly structured to safeguard against the creation of Terminators. The new
letter comes ahead of the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial
Intelligence, which begins today in Buenos Aires.
Hawking is also answering
questions on Reddit this week, with the guiding topic of “making the future of
technology more human.” Undoubtedly, some of the questions will likely hinge on
the role robots and AI have in our future.
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