2.1.2 Autonomous weapons

Course subject(s) Module 2. Open up your mind Module 2. Conversion Methods

Autonomous weapons

We recommend you have a look at these articles if you are addressing autonomous weapons in your solution to the challenge.

  • In Autonomous Weapons: An Introduction, the following questions are addressed: Firstly, do such weapons necessarily compromise the moral responsibility of their human designers, programmers and/or operators and, if so, in what manner and to what extent? Secondly, should autonomous weapons be prohibited?
  • Gizmodo shares an excerpt from In Max Tegmark’s new book, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence iWhy Banning Killer AI Is Easier Said Than Done. In his book, the MIT physicist and founder of the Future of Life Institute contemplates this seemingly scifi possibility, weighing the potential benefits of autonomous machines in warfare with the tremendous risks.
  • This policy paper Robo-Wars: The Regulation of Robotic Weapons summarises different types of military robots and outlines the relevant technological features of robotic weapons. It provides an overview of the ongoing debates as to whether the use of robotic weapons is legal and ethical. It then assesses current proposals for the regulation of robotic weapons. Finally, the paper makes recommendations to states, manufacturers and the military on how to develop a suitable regulatory framework for robotic weapons.
  • AI Researchers and companies building the technologies in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics that may be repurposed to develop autonomous weapons have sent open letters to for example the United Nations, as a warning that lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare. To date, the open letter has been signed by 3963 AI/Robotics researchers and 22396 others. See AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS: AN OPEN LETTER FROM AI & ROBOTICS RESEARCHERS and AN OPEN LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON CERTAIN CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS 

You can also dive into these resources if you would like to really become an expert:

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Biobased Products for a Sustainable (Bio)economy by TU Delft OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://online-learning.tudelft.nl/courses/biobased-products-for-a-sustainable-bio-economy/.
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