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Tesla's Musk, Other Robotics Experts Urge UN to Ban Killer Robots

Tesla's Musk, Other Robotics Experts Urge UN to Ban Killer Robots

(Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

By    |   Sunday, 20 August 2017 04:56 PM EDT

Tesla’s Elon Musk and Google Deepmind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, along with 116 other robotics and artificial intelligence experts, are calling on the United Nations to take action against “killer robots,” the Guardian reported Sunday.

In an open letter to the UN ahead of its formal discussion on lethal autonomous weapons, the founders wrote: “Once developed, lethal autonomous weapons will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend. These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways. We do not have long to act. Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close.”

Musk on Twitter last week warned the threat posed by artificial intelligence was “vastly more risk than North Korea.”

The UN in December 2016 voted to form a group of governmental experts to review the issue of lethal autonomous robots, which can select and engage targets without any human intervention.

Many AI and robotics experts oppose their use and believe they are a threat to humanity and any autonomous "kill functions" should be banned. 

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Tesla's Elon Musk and Google Deepmind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, along with 116 other robotics and artificial intelligence experts, are calling on the United Nations to take action against "killer robots," the Guardian reported Sunday.
elon musk, tesla, robotics, ai, killer robots, un, united nations
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2017-56-20
Sunday, 20 August 2017 04:56 PM
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