At UN, 'Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons' witnesses increasing support for regulating “Killer Robots”

United Nations Organisation: The UN meeting on “Convention on Conventional Weapons” witnessed increasing support for regulating laws and ban on “Killer Robots”. The ‘Group of Governmental Experts’ established by the UN on the subject of ‘Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems’ met last week. In this meeting it was agreed upon that the issue of ‘Killer Robots’ is grave and a detailed convention will be held next year on this issue. The group on ‘Campaign to Stop Killer Robots’ as well as other groups demanding discussion on this issue has welcomed the UN proposal.

During the past few years, the use of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics has increased in the field of weapon development and manufacturing. The countries and companies leading in the production and export of weapons have already started emphasizing this and other countries are following suit. With this background, leading industrialists, specialists, researchers from the world have come together and are insisting on putting a ban on these ‘Killer robots’. These include Tesla Chief Elon Musk, reknown scientist Stephen Hawking, Mustafa Suleyman from Google DeepMind and hundreds of others.

Global groups like ‘Campaign to Stop Killer Robots’ have been formed to push the demand for banning the Killer Robots and the issue has been raised in the UN as well. Considering the global protests, UN had formed ‘Group of Governmental Experts’ on the subject of ‘Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems’. The group met last week. Majority of the participants agreed that the issue of ‘Killer Robots’ is a serious one.

Amandeep Gill, who chaired the meeting, however clarified that the fear of Robots taking control of the human race is unfounded at present. It is still humans controlling the robots and hence there is no need to emotionalise or dramatise the issue. A detailed convention is being held on this issue next year and the subject of control on ‘Autonomous Weapons Systems’ will be discussed in the meet, said Gill.

The group ‘Campaign to Stop Killer Robots’ while welcoming the UN meet, claimed that some important points have been revealed to the world on the subject. The group claimed that a positive feedback has been received in the UN meet on the subject of the need to have control on the Killer Robots and establishing a legal framework for the same.

Killer Robots developed on the basis of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics indicate the third revolution in the warfare and the human society will not be able to face the war started by these Killer Robots as alleged seriously through an open letter in the month of August.