Treaties banning biological and chemical weapons are in place, and the path is clear to remove nuclear weapons too. Lethal autonomous weapons (killer robots) should be next.
Hands off – but do we trust the car?
AP Photo/Eric Risberg
The ethics and psychology of trust suggest ways we might learn to understand self-driving cars, but also show why doing so might be more challenging than we expect.
The droid K-2SO from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Lucasfilm Ltd
Rebel fighters in the latest Star Wars movie are helped by a droid that was captured from the enemy and reprogrammed. Could that happen in real life with today’s autonomous weapons?
Should we act to prevent this from ever happening?
Armed robot via shutterstock.com
We need to ban lethal autonomous weapons, or “killer robots”, as we have done with biological weapons, land mines and blinding lasers, and Australia should take a leading role in making that happen.
Crewed submarines like the HMAS Rankin might become a thing of the past.
United States Navy, Photographer's Mate 1st Class David A. Levy
Autonomous submarines might do for naval warfare what drones are doing for air warfare. So should Australia consider autonomous subs as a replacement for the Collins class?
An eye in the sky from the movie of the same name – the reality of drone warfare.
Entertainment One
The moral and ethical dilemmas of future warfare are depicted in this tight British thriller. But what will happen when humans become more removed from the weapons of war?
Who gets to fire the gun? Man or AI-powered machine?
Flickr/Robot flingueur
Science fiction has long warned of technology taking over the world. We’re increasingly connected to a digital world that’s growing, and more automated. So what if it starts to evolve?
Have questions about robots and artificial intelligence?
Shutterstock
The thousands of people who signed an open letter calling for a ban on autonomous killer weapons and robots are misguided. We already have such killing machines and we should embrace them.
Science fiction abounds with warnings concerning offensive autonomous weapons, or ‘killer robots’.
superde1uxe/Flickr
The debate over whether lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) – often called ‘killer robots’ – should be banned continues, although it’s far from settled.
The future of warfare might involve autonomous weapon systems, such as the BAE Taranis, although some are unsettled by the idea of giving machines lethal capabilities.
Mike Young
Should future wars be fought by autonomous systems? Or do they pose such a threat that they should be banned? These issues are being debated this week by diplomats from around the world.
Lecturer on Law and Associate Director of Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection, International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School, Harvard University