Pentagon Tries to Tamp Down Fears of Killer Robot Tanks

The Pentagon is trying to calm fears that a new artificial intelligence-driven Army tank will be turned into a killer robot, Defense One reported.

In response to a hair-raising account of the Advanced Targeting and Lethality Automated System (ATLAS) Program in Quartz, the military is now changing the wording in its request for information to emphasize the program would follow Defense Department policy on human control of lethal robots, Defense One reported.

The Pentagon aims to upgrade the current ATLAS used on ground combat vehicles to help human gunners aim, Defense One noted. The military is looking for commercial partners to help develop aiming systems to "acquire, identify, and engage targets at least three times faster than the current manual process.””

Quartz reported some researchers and experts worried the systems could choose their own targets and make an autonomous decision to fire.

The robot’s ability to identify, target, and engage doesn’t mean “we’re putting the machine in a position to kill anybody,” one unnamed Army official told Defense One.

“The controversy over ATLAS demonstrates that there are continuing technological and ethical issues surrounding the integration of autonomy into weapon systems,” Michael Horowitz,  associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, told Defense One.

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