Scientists sign pledge not to develop autonomous weapons

2,400 scientists sign pledge not to work on robo-soldiers

More than 2,000 scientists working in artificial intelligence have signed a pledge not to develop or manufacture "lethal autonomous weapons".

The 2,400 or so signatories include Tesla founder Elon Musk, and the three co-founders of Google's London-based DeepMind AI subsidiary.

The scientists are seeking the introduction of global laws for military firms and nations to stop the production of any lethal autonomous weapon system.

Currently, the militaries of governments around the world are one of the largest funders and adopters of AI, and without legislation in place the production of robots with weapons could be very hard to control.

We need to make it the international norm that autonomous weapons are not acceptable

AI is advancing fast, and in the future it is expected that AI will be able to act just like humans, making its own split-second decisions. If equipped with weapons, an autonomous robot could decide for itself to fire or not, without human intervention.

In addition, they potentially be hacked and used for terrorist and other malign purposes, argued Toby Walsh, a professor of AI at the University of New South Wales in Sydney: "We need to make it the international norm that autonomous weapons are not acceptable. A human must always be in the loop.

"We cannot stop a determined person from building autonomous weapons, just as we cannot stop a determined person from building a chemical weapon. But if we don't want rogue states or terrorists to have easy access to autonomous weapons, we must ensure they are not sold openly by arms companies."

Government ministers in the UK have stated that Britain is not currently developing lethal autonomous weapons systems and that its forces will always have oversight and control of the weapons it deploys.

It's not just individual scientists who are putting their opinions accross; at the International Joint Conference on AI in Stockholm today, more than 150 AI-related companies who have also signed the pledge will be unveiled.