MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In December 2016, over 120 parties to the international Convention on Conventional Weapons supported an initiative to establish a group of experts to consider the issues related to the lethal autonomous robots in 2017.
"We warmly welcome the decision of the UN’s Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to establish a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems… We entreat the High Contracting Parties participating in the GGE to work hard at finding means to prevent an arms race in these weapons, to protect civilians from their misuse, and to avoid the destabilizing effects of these technologies," the letter signed by the leaders of companies focusing on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics said.
Head of the @UN encourages all member states to deal with the troubling trend of autonomy in weapons systems https://t.co/dLbn2mAk5s #CCWUN pic.twitter.com/yKFs0S08Xn
— Stop Killer Robots (@BanKillerRobots) 13 июня 2017 г.
According to the letter, the business people welcome the move to establish the group of experts, offer to support its activities with the sufficient capabilities and call on it to find a way to protect the humanity from potential dangers of such robotic systems.
The business people warned that killer robots could become "weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations" and it would be rather hard to close such Pandora's box.
Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that's a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 12 августа 2017 г.
In response to developments of autonomous vehicles capable of eliminating targets in war without human intervention, the United Nations initiated the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, which convened its second meeting in late 2015.
