Will Our Weaponised Robots Become Autonomous?
Killer robots: Drones may soon be able to make life or death decisions
IMAGE BY Wired
America's drone fleet has become an increasingly relied-upon wing of its counter-insurgency strategy and plays a key role in its geopolitical policy, particularly in Pakistan where unmanned aircraft routinely venture into sovereign territory and deliver lethal payloads to targets on the ground. But the Washington Post asks: just exactly how far away are we from real "killer robots." The answer, in this morning's piece of recommended reading, is: we're already there.
We know that various research and academic institutions are working on robot autonomy, but what's a bit mind blowing is just how far along some of this technology is. At Fort Benning, Alabama, a team of Georgia Tech computer scientists is helping the military demonstrate software that can autonomously--without a shred of human input--acquire and make life or death decisions about targets on the ground.