When Thinking Machines Break the Law …

The company says it will continue to work with its military clients, but has “vouched to not manufacture weaponized robots that remove humans from the loop” as it “has chosen to value our ethics over potential future revenue.” Stop Killer Robots Canada has welcomed the statement by Clearpath Robotics, which it said “has set the ethical standard for robotics companies around the world.”

"It's no longer a flight of fantasy, it's something that people should start taking seriously. But at the same time, it's not too late. Had we waited until we started seeing these enter battlefields worldwide, we think that it would be much harder to get this sort of dialogue going and realistically have a chance of stopping this technology from proliferating,"

Engineers say the robot is also equipped with a sophisticated audio command program that recognizes and subsequently ignores such phrases as “Stop” and “I give up” and is programmed to apply pressure to a prostrate suspect’s neck with a force of up to 500 PSI both before and after he’s stopped moving. Its operating system is also reportedly loaded with advanced visual recognition software that allows the robot to identify nearly any object in the subject’s hand as a weapon, prompting it to rapidly empty the clip on its extendable .40-caliber firearm.

Why are we so afraid of robots in general, and why can’t we have robots do our dirty work? Human mediation, as anyone who’s interacted with humans understands, is typically messy and irrational. Why would it be less likely for a robot to comply with international humanitarian law than a human?

Imaginez des machines capables de repérer des humains, de les approcher et de... les tuer. Pour le moment, cette situation n'est qu'une fiction mise en scène dans la saga "Terminator". Mais la technologie progresse si rapidement qu'elle pourrait être très bientôt une réalité.

make/real, Virgil Widrich, 2010:

'Killer robots' to be debated at UN

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If you want to trust a robot, look at how it makes decisions