The sentient, murderous humanoid robot is a complete fiction, and may never become reality. But that doesn’t mean we’re safe from autonomous weapons – they are already here.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems
Displaying 1 - 20 of 32 articles
Diverging views on automated weapons systems could make it difficult for Australia and New Zealand to manage military ties at a delicate time in trans-Tasman relations.
Russia’s absurd claims about ‘smart’ landmines show it’s high time the world put limits on autonomous weapons.
Russia has sophisticated drone capabilities, but generals may not trust the technology enough to use it.
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.
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.
New Zealanders are worried about autonomous weapons. But military alliances with the US and Australia, and potential economic gains from local robotics research, mean NZ won’t yet take a tough stand.
Like atomic bombs and chemical and biological weapons, deadly drones that make their own decisions must be tightly controlled by an international treaty.
Marketing for robotic ‘dogs’ plays up their potential for good, but the debate about lethal autonomous weapons suggests public anxiety is warranted.
The debate on autonomous weapons isn’t paying enough attention to the technology already in use.
A standard element of international humanitarian law since 1899 should guide countries as they consider banning lethal autonomous weapons systems.
As tensions between the US and Russia escalate, both sides are developing technological capabilities, including artificial intelligence that could be used in conflict.
The unexpected behaviour of even simple bots is only going to get more dramatic as AI scales up.
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.
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.
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?
Machines that can target and kill people without human intervention or accountability pose a moral threat to the world.
The future of warfare may include many lethal autonomous weapons, but the world can’t decide how, or if, to regulate them.
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.
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?
Top contributors
-
Professor of AI at UNSW, Research Group Leader, UNSW Sydney
-
PhD in machine ethics, University of Canterbury
-
Professor in Robotics, Queensland University of Technology
-
Lecturer in Cyber Security, UNSW Sydney
-
Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Canterbury
-
Lecturer on Law and Associate Director of Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection, International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School, Harvard University
-
Lecturer in Digital Humanities / Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science and International Relations, University of Canterbury
-
Postdoctoral fellow, University of Canterbury
-
Professor of English, Macalester College
-
Associate Professor, Data Science and AI, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University
-
Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
-
Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society & School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University
-
Associate Professor, School of Sociology; Geary Fellow, Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin
-
Professor, Department of Philosophy; Adjunct Professor, Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University
-
Honorary Senior Fellow, The University of Melbourne
