As It Happens

Artificial intelligence professor fights autonomous weapons at UN

The UN is hosting its first-ever debate on the use of autonomous weapons at the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), today. An autonomous weapon differs from a drone because it can select and engage targets without any human intervention. The debate is the most highly attended meeting of the CCW - - also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention....
The UN is hosting its first-ever debate on the use of a utonomous weapons at the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), today. An autonomous weapon differs from a drone because it can select and engage targets without any human intervention. The debate is the most highly attended meeting of the CCW - - also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention.
You're talking about an alien mind. It's not going to make decisions like humans. It's not going to be sympathetic to humans.

Proponents argue that autonomous weapons will not commit war crimes.

Noel Sharkey is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sheffield. He's at the debate and argues for a ban on autonomous weapons. 

According to Professor Sharkey, fully autonomous weapons cannot discriminate between combatants and civilians, so current target selection programs cannot differentiate between a soldier holding a rifle and a child carrying a stick.

Hear why Noel Sharkey is fighting for a ban on 'killer robots'.