La lettre contre les "robots tueurs"
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La lettre contre les "robots tueurs"


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Autonomous Weapons: an Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers Autonomous weapons select and engage targets without human intervention.



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Published 29 July 2015
Reads 8 332
Language English
Autonomous Weapons: an Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers
Autonomous weapons select and engage targets without human intervention. They might include, for example, armedquadcopters that can search for and eliminate people meeting certain pre-defined criteria, but do not include cruise missiles or remotelypiloted drones for which humans make all targetingdecisions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologyhas reached apoint where the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.
Manyarguments have been made for and against autonomous weapons, for example that replacinghuman soldiers bymachines isgood byreducingcasualties for the owner but bad by thereby lowering the threshold for going to battle. The key question for humanitytodayis whether to start aglobal AI arms race or toprevent it from starting. If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtuallyinevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectoryis obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so theywill become ubiquitous and cheapfor all significant militarypowers to mass-produce. It will only be a matter of time until they appear on the black market and in the hands of terrorists, dictators wishingto better control their populace, warlords wishingtoperpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc. Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilizing nations, subduing populations and selectivelykillingaparticular ethnicgroup. We therefore believe that a militaryAI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity. There are many ways in which AI can make battlefields safer for humans, especially civilians, without creating new tools for killing people.
Just as most chemists and biologists have no interest in building chemical or biological weapons, most AI researchers have no interest in buildingAI weapons — and do not want others to tarnish their field by doing so, potentially creating a major public backlash against AI that curtails its future societal benefits. Indeed, chemists and biologists have broadly supported international agreements that have successfully prohibited chemical and biological weapons, just as most physicists supported the treaties banningspace-based nuclear weapons and blindinglaser weapons.
In summary, we believe that AI hasgreatpotential to benefit humanityin manyways, and that the goal of the field should be to do so. Starting a military AI arms race is a