Speaker 1: In films like Terminator, autonomous weapons become an existential threat
Speaker 1: to humanity. In reality, experts from around the world are
Speaker 1: urging countries to back away from developing smart weapons. I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, and this is text stuff. They it's a
Speaker 1: terrifying thought. A weapon controlled by an artificially intelligent program
Speaker 1: identifies targets on its own and unleasha's deadly violence against them.
Speaker 1: There's no human guiding the machine. It's effectively a gun
Speaker 1: that chooses whom it will shoot, all on its own.
Speaker 1: It's not a far fetched idea. In an arrow where
Speaker 1: computer programs can defeat humans at games like chess or go,
Speaker 1: or one where cars are getting closer to taking over
Speaker 1: the wheel and driving on their own, it's not difficult
Speaker 1: to imagine a robot design specifically to perform the role
Speaker 1: of soldiers. Militaries around the world already depend upon systems
Speaker 1: that have semi autonomous capabilities, from tracking technologies to drones,
Speaker 1: and many experts warned that consequences of developing and deploying
Speaker 1: this technology are dire. One potential scenario is that such
Speaker 1: devices could and likely will occasionally fire upon people who
Speaker 1: aren't actually targets. During a gathering at the United Nations
Speaker 1: on November four, a group of concerned AI experts presented
Speaker 1: a film that includes such a scenario. In the movie,
Speaker 1: a fleet of drones flies down and fires upon a
Speaker 1: classroom filled with students. It's a horrifying thought and one
Speaker 1: that could become reality should the development of this technology continue,
Speaker 1: warrant these experts. Even if we assume everything always works
Speaker 1: as intended, there are still huge ethical problems. For example,
Speaker 1: if a nation has a sizeable army of robot soldiers,
Speaker 1: whether in drone form or otherwise, would that nation be
Speaker 1: more likely to enter into armed conflict with others? After all,
Speaker 1: the stakes are lower for this country. Its soldiers are
Speaker 1: made of metal and plastic, and while expensive, they can
Speaker 1: be replaced. There are fewer dark consequences from the perspective
Speaker 1: of loss with such an army. This isn't a new fear.
Speaker 1: AI experts have been urging the United Nations to adopt
Speaker 1: a ban on autonomous weapons for a few years now.
Speaker 1: Back in when the first serious discussions began, many people
Speaker 1: may have felt the whole conversation was premature, but as
Speaker 1: the fields of machine intelligence, machine learning, and robotics have
Speaker 1: all advanced over the years, it's apparent that this future
Speaker 1: isn't as far off as we may have thought just
Speaker 1: a few years ago. There are more than sixty non
Speaker 1: governmental organizations that have banded together to call for an
Speaker 1: outright ban on autonomous weapon development. Unfortunately, it's not as
Speaker 1: simple as taking the floor at the u N and
Speaker 1: convincing everyone that this technology poses far more threats than
Speaker 1: benefits to humanity. For now, the forum for these discussions
Speaker 1: is a subcommittee called the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons,
Speaker 1: a terrible name. It's a consensus based forum, and each
Speaker 1: nation has the power to veto any proposed ban. As
Speaker 1: you might imagine, it's pretty difficult to convince more than
Speaker 1: a hundred twenty countries to all agree on a single topic.
Speaker 1: Earlier in a group of entrepreneurs, researchers, computer scientists, and
Speaker 1: others signed an open letter to the u N on
Speaker 1: the subject. In that letter, rather than asking for a
Speaker 1: band the experts applauded the u n's decision to create
Speaker 1: a new Group of Governmental Experts, or g g E
Speaker 1: in the field of lethal autonomous weapons systems. The group
Speaker 1: also extended an invitation to the g g E to
Speaker 1: ask for any sort of technical guidance it might need.
Speaker 1: The letter stated, we entreat the high contracting parties participating
Speaker 1: in the g g E to work hard at finding
Speaker 1: means to prevent an arms race in these weapons, to
Speaker 1: protect civilians from their misuse, and to avoid the destabilizing
Speaker 1: effects of these technologies. The development of AI in general
Speaker 1: has been likened to an arms race. You don't have
Speaker 1: to attach artificial intelligence to a weapon to make it dangerous.
Speaker 1: Plenty of people have expressed concerns about the possibility of
Speaker 1: AI causing harm to humans in general, whether intentionally or otherwise.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has
Speaker 1: expressed on numerous occasions that we should be cautious with
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that
Speaker 1: the nations that advance AI will become the dominant powers
Speaker 1: of the future world. Specifically, he said, whoever becomes the
Speaker 1: leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.
Speaker 1: It seems unlikely that the U N will outright ban
Speaker 1: the development of autonomous weaponry. The chair of the first
Speaker 1: Meeting of the Convention on Conventional Weapons is Ambassador I'm
Speaker 1: on Deep Singh gil from India, who has said it
Speaker 1: would be very easy to just legislate a ban. Whatever
Speaker 1: it is, let's just ban it. But I think that we,
Speaker 1: as responsible actors in the international domain, we have to
Speaker 1: be clear what it is that we are legislating on.
Speaker 1: It's more likely that we will see the u N
Speaker 1: try to create a framework in which they will outline
Speaker 1: generally agreed upon boundaries for what is legal and ethical
Speaker 1: in the realm of autonomous weapons. To some, including myself,
Speaker 1: it may seem a little weird to talk about what
Speaker 1: is an ethical versus unethical means to end another human life,
Speaker 1: But that's an entirely different discussion. Maybe someday wars will
Speaker 1: be fought by robots on both sides and the winner
Speaker 1: will be whichever side has the most working units by
Speaker 1: the end of the conflict. But between now and then
Speaker 1: will likely have many discussions about the cold, calculating, and
Speaker 1: potentially terrifying future of warfare. To learn more about artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence and robots, subscribe to the tech Stuff podcast. We
Speaker 1: exp more topics like these in much greater detail. New
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