Autonomous weapon systems and military

Military use of AI is an area of major concern, and some believe that the ship on autonomous weapon systems has already sailed. These AI systems can target and engage without human control51 and, therefore, can potentially be one step away from starting a nuclear catastrophe. There have been known incidents of using these weapons in the field, such as the satellite-controlled machine gun with AI that was used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh,52 without injuring his wife beside him. It shows the lethal precision of such weapons. There are known autonomous weapons projects including SGR-A153, armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) (commonly known as drones) that can carry automatic weapons54, autonomous tanks and unmanned combat ground vehicles (UCCGs) such as Uran-9 55, and Ghost Robotics quadrupedal robots (also known as robot dogs) with guns56.

The list we’ve just reviewed, though disheartening and far...