Debate on moral issues posed by robots
Investigator says US, Britain and Israel using them as weapons
GENEVA: A United Nations human rights investigator called yesterday for all states to declare a moratorium to prevent so-called “killer robots” being deployed on the battlefield.
Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on executions, said that unmanned robotic weapons systems with varying degrees of autonomy and deadliness were being tested or used by the United States, Britain and Israel without debate on moraI and legal issues.
“Moratoria are needed to prevent steps from being taken that may be difficult to reverse later,” Heyns said in a 22-page report on “lethal autonomous robotics”, due to be discussed at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.
“Their deployment may be unacceptable because no adequate system of legal accountability can be devised and because robots should not have the power of life and death over human beings.”
Remotely-piloted drone aircraft, increasingly used to carry out targeted killings in US counterterrorism operations, are problematic in their own right, said Heyns, a South African law professor serving in the independent expert post.
But adding robots to arsenals would bring a new dimension as they would take targeting decisions themselves, which could “open an even larger Pandora’s box”, he warned.
Technology is developing at an “exponential rate”, but programmes are shrouded in secrecy, making it impossible to know how soon fully autonomous weapons might be ready, he said.
Northrop Grumman and Samsung Techwin are among companies with robotic systems being used or tested, Heyns said. Samsung security robots deployed in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea are operated by humans but have an automatic mode, he said.
Hotspots
Based on current experience with drones — used by the US military in hotspots including Pakistan and Yemen — “there is reason to believe that states will, inter alia, seek to use lethal autonomous robotics for targeted killing”, Heyns said.
He welcomed a Pentagon directive last November recognising the need for domestic control of production and deployment of lethal autonomous robotics, “imposing a form of moratorium”.
— Reuters
