Open Letter Requests to Ban Development and Use of Autonomous Weapons

An open letter has been signed by more than a thousand artificial intelligence researchers in which they have requested the United Nations to stop the development and use of autonomous weapons. The letter has been presented at the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, this week.

Personalities that have signed the letter include Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, physicist Stephen Hawking, Google director of research Peter Norvig and Microsoft managing director Eric Horvitz among others.

In the letter, experts have mentioned that autonomous weapons could lead to a third revolution in warfare. Even if these weapons are developed for the use in legal warfare then also they could become ‘the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow’, could be stolen by terrorists and used against people.

“They're likely to be used not just in wars between countries, but the way Kalashnikovs are used now ... in civil wars. [Kalashnikovs are] used to terrorize populations by warlords and guerrillas. They're used by governments to oppress their own people”, said experts.

Moreover, the autonomous weapons systems would not prove quite costly. Therefore, they have the tendency to be available everywhere and could be mass-produced. The open letter is the latest one being issued by scientists and entrepreneurs about the threats that can be posed by AI for humanity.

Stephen Hawking in December 2014 has stated that the development of artificial intelligence could bring an end of the human race.