A new form of self-autonomous weaponry will now be able to identify targets and have the capability to shoot without any human intervention.
This technology is known as "killer robots," which appear in many forms, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV).
These robots will need no human control and they can fire at targets at will.
In an exclusive interview with Sputnik, Bonnie Docherty from Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the development of this technology is closer then we think.
"The next step when the decision-making power is delegated to machines will happen in years and not decades."
As a result the HRW is working in Geneva to ban these robots to stop any negative impact they could have on humanity.
Docherty and her colleagues are working on the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and believes that if they make an addition to the existing treaty then killer robots could potentially be banned, which HRW believes this is feasible and necessary.
Meeting of experts at @UNGeneva discusses Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems '#killerrobots' Latest info: https://t.co/JNyKx2Lcwj #CCWUN
— UN Geneva (@UNGeneva) April 13, 2016
However, the use of such technology could possibly help with decreasing causalities.
"Delegating life and death decisions to machines [is] lowering the value of humanity. They also raise an issue or accountability and cause an arms race," Docherty said.
For HRW the only way to stop these weapons from developing is the convention, but also the public can play an important role too.
"[The] most important thing is a treaty that stops them from [ever] developing, so that they never enter countries… countries can develop policies and the public should also put pressure on governments too."
But the fact still remains that this may not be enough to stop the development of such technology and more pressure needs to be put on governments to act.
"Here in Geneva there are dozens of states that are gathering and the 3rd year of active discussions about these weapons, the question is what they will do about it and now we are asking for them to stop talking and move to action," Docherty said.
