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Articles on Autonomous weapons

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It wouldn’t take much to turn this remotely operated mobile machine gun into an autonomous killer robot. Pfc. Rhita Daniel, U.S. Marine Corps

War in Ukraine accelerates global drive toward killer robots

The technology exists to build autonomous weapons. How well they would work and whether they could be adequately controlled are unknown. The Ukraine war has only turned up the pressure.
The term ‘killer robot’ often conjures images of Terminator-like humanoid robots. Militaries around the world are working on autonomous machines that are less scary looking but no less lethal. John F. Williams/U.S. Navy

An autonomous robot may have already killed people – here’s how the weapons could be more destabilizing than nukes

Sci-fi nightmares of a robot apocalypse aside, autonomous weapons are a very real threat to humanity. An expert on the weapons explains how the emerging arms race could be humanity’s last.
The MK 15 Phalanx close-in weapons system, on the USS Reuben James guided-missile frigate, fires during an exercise. Flickr/US Pacific Fleet

Why it’s so hard to reach an international agreement on killer robots

We already have some autonomous weapons – so talk of any ban should focus on where we draw the line on what is acceptable, and what is not. Can we at least agree on that?

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