Two recent developments got me thinking about lethal autonomous weapons, ironically, as the law has been succinctly abbreviated. There was a report that China has deployed machine-gun-powered autonomous robots indian border, because the heights of the Himalayas were considered too cold for human soldiers to patrol round the clock. The second was a fascinating BBC series called ‘Reith Lecture’, given by Stuart Russell, head of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in which he describes the threat posed by LAWs or AI-powered weapons.
Mention autonomous weapons and most people picture giant battle robots of Terminator fame. While we are not there yet, there is an arms race going on to create something similar and frightening. Russell’s Future of Life Institute created a Black Mirror-style fictional video called Slaughterbots in 2017 that went viral. It depicts tiny AI-powered quadcopters with explosive warheads that can swarm attacks on cities and people and become terrifying, intelligent weapons of mass destruction. They can be algorithmically directed to choose a certain race, gender or particular face as their target profile and mount selective attacks on such victims. Russell pointed out that all the technologies shown in that video were already there, but they weren’t put together. The institute recently released a sequel to the video that shows even more dangerous ‘use cases’: laws in cars shooting voters at polling stations, bank robberies by dog-like robots carrying assault weapons, A nightclub massacre by autonomous quadcopters with bombs. Such scenes have become frighteningly real. Eight were injured recently in an autonomous armed drone strike by Houthi rebels on targets in Saudi Arabia. Autonomous armed quadcopters are beginning to appear at arms fairs and exhibitions.
I have often written about AI saying that it is probably the most powerful technology ever created by mankind. It has many benefits, but also a dark side, and the laws reside in its deepest dungeons. One of the reasons Russell brought out the video and delivered the ‘Reith Lecture’ was to persuade world powers to impose international, legally binding sanctions on such autonomous weapons. These lectures were done just before the United Nations Convention on Some Conventional Weapons: The Sixth Review Conference, which took place in late 2020, with 125 member states meeting to discuss the ban. There are clear examples of this. A potentially catastrophic nuclear threat has so far been avoided by global regulation. The oddly named convention has actually succeeded in reducing dangerous incendiary explosives and blinding lasers; Bio and chemical weapons have also been regulated.
Killer robots, on the other hand, do not affect the powers of the world. The Sixth Review Conference ended with an ineffective and non-binding code of conduct. The US, Britain, Russia and China all argued it was “too early”, something that Russell and other experts strongly disputed. These countries have made the odd argument that LAWs could actually lead to more “humanitarian” warfare with fighting robots. Robots and no humans are involved, or that the killer bot will only target and kill soldiers, with no harm to civilians. Secretly, they fear that other countries will take the lead on them if they leave development work to the law.
There is no water in these arguments. The same could have been true of bio and chemical weapons, but the world managed to control them, although it was believed to be a less fractured world with more politicians among politicians. Second, the technology behind these weapons is nowhere near as accurate as the armies would like us to believe. Note the civilian casualties that accompany every ‘targeted’ drone or missile attack in Afghanistan or Iraq. Third, and most ominously, the moment we have weapons like these being produced by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, non-state actors and terrorist groups will capture them. A bunch of autonomous killing machines can make suicide-vest attacks primitive.
The great inventor Thomas Edison said a century ago: “One day a machine or force will emerge from the mind of science so fearful in its capabilities, so terrifying, that even man … will be frightened, and therefore war Leave it forever.” Even nuclear weapons, with the power to destroy our planet many times over, have not been able to fulfill Edison’s prophecy. Will an AI-Powered Killer Robot Might Be the World’s Last Invention?
Jaspreet Bindra is Chief Technical Whisperer in Findability Sciences, and learning AI, Ethics and Society at Cambridge University.
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