More than a hundred CEOs of companies specialized in robotics and Artificial Intelligence, including the billionaire Elon Musk, have sent an open letter to the United Nations to launch a warning about "killer robots", according to AFP. The killer robots which these entrepreneurs and experts are complaining about are autonomous weapons that could be used in wars.
The open letter says that offensive autonomous weapons created to kill will allow armed conflicts to reach an unprecedented scale, but also an unprecedented speed. The letter was published in the UN Convention on weapons.
Call to ban the 'killer robots'
Elon Musk — the owner of Tesla and the CEO of SpaceX — has joined a group of researchers who are asking the United Nations to ban the use of AI robots in war. Along with Musk, the open letter was signed by 115 other people from 26 countries, including researchers, experts, and specialists in robotics and artificial intelligence. Mustafa Suleyman from the British company DeepMind (owned by Google and specializing in artificial intelligence) is also one of the people who signed the letter.
The letter warns that the robots with artificial intelligence could trigger the third revolution in armed conflicts, after the first two revolutions generated by gunpowder and nuclear weapons.
Elon Musk (also a member of the Future of Life Institute — a nonprofit organization that warned about the potential negative effects of technology), insisted about the dangers generated by artificial intelligence, stressing that artificial intelligence could be used to build killer robots.
Could killer robots be used in wars?
The people who signed this letter said they feel responsible to trigger an alarm signal about this issue, especially because their companies set up robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. They are afraid these technologies could be diverted from their basic purpose and turned into autonomous weapons.
In a document published on Sunday by the Future of Life Institute, the people who signed this letter continued arguing that these technologies could become horrible weapons, weapons that can be used by dictators and terrorists against innocent people.
They also said there is not much time to act on this threat. They are afraid that once this "Pandora's box" is opened, it will be difficult close. They are asking the United Nations to find a way to protect them from these dangers.
The United Nations is analyzing the issue of killer robots
The United Nation has been analyzing these types of weapons since 2013. According to the United Nations' website, a series of meetings about this issue should have taken place on Monday in Geneva, but they were finally postponed for November this year.
