Scientists call for ban on killer robots

[Gary]

Leading Scientists Call for Bban on Killer Robots

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has reached a point 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,” the letter reads.

Full article: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles...

I don't know about you folks, but I agree with Stephen Hawking. (I usually do....) We need to de-weaponize these things if for no other reason than so they don't KILL US ALL!

Granted, a really effective set of Robot Laws would deal with the situation, but other than laying them out for us all nice and neatly, Asimov didn't go about actually explaining how that might get implemented, so until someone whips out some sort of recursive holographic morality, I say we keep the weapons off the robots for our own safety.

Yes, it will gut the basis plot of any number of SF novels, but I for one am willing to make that sacrifice.

[Yoly]

Even though I'm not on the "AI IS EVIL AND SKYNET IS OUT TO GET US" bandwagon, I strongly agree with this one.

I don't think we're that close to Skynet *cough* Google *cough* but letting computers decide when to fire a weapon, that could get complicated very quickly. Even with the all of the possible controls in place something like this could be dangerous, a tiny little bug could be disastrous.

I'm currently reading Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, I'm listening to the audio version and the narrator sounds a bit like text to speech (probably intentional given the subject?), the author is basically saying that AI is going to wipe us out. I've loved the book so far although I don't agree with everything the author has to say, but he makes a good case.

Now that you mention the Robot Laws he mentions them in his book. He says laws like these will make a "friendly AI". A friendly AI is one that is not going to hurt us.

But yeah, this is definitely sci-fi material!

On a side note: one of the best stories about AI that I've read is this one: Avogadro Corp