July's Inter-news

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JULY, 2015   - Humans could be left "utterly defenceless" by small and agile flying robots that think for themselves and are designed to kill, a leading US computer science expert has warned.

The deadly drones are the likely "endpoint" of the current technological march towards lethal autonomous weapons systems (Laws), according to Professor Stuart Russell from the University of California at Berkeley.

Weapons which will be controlled by artificial intelligence, not humans, could be as little as 10 years away, said the professor.

He added: "The stakes are high: Laws have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms."

Professor Russell isn't the only expert that's called for tighter regulation on Artificial Intelligence. Renowned physicist Professor Stephen Hawking has warned on numerous occasions that AI  'could spell the end of the human race'.

Writing in a comment article published in the journal Nature, Professor Russell worryingly argues that these drones will be limited not by intelligence, but by their own physical constraints of speed, mobility and firepower.

He continued: "As flying robots become smaller, their manoeuvrability increases and their ability to be targeted decreases. They have a shorter range, yet they must be large enough to carry a lethal payload - perhaps a one-gram shaped charge to puncture the human cranium.

"Despite the limits imposed by physics, one can expect platforms deployed in the millions, the agility and lethality of which will leave humans utterly defenceless. This is not a desirable future. "

Prof Russell called on his peers - AI and robotics scientists - and professional scientific organisations to take a position on Laws, just as physicists did over nuclear weapons and biologists over the use of disease agents in warfare.