We should regulate, not ban killer robots

Last week, 116 experts including Tesla’s Elon Musk and DeepMind’s Mustafa Suleyman called for a ban on autonomous weapons, otherwise known as ‘killer robots’. The experts’ aims are laudable, but they are likely to have about as much effect as King Canute ordering the sea to turn back. Whether we like it or not, autonomous weapons are coming. States like China, Russia and the US are already developing such systems. They will not want to lose the potential military advantage to the other superpowers. From a technological perspective, seeking to ban one application of Artificial Intelligence will become increasingly difficult. More and more, A.I. is multi-purpose. Just think of IBM’s flagship program, ‘Watson’. In 2011, it won the US general knowledge gameshow Jeopardy. By 2012, it had been sold to several medical companies to be used in diagnosing patients. Now, essentially the same program is used in a vast range of areas – from law to cooking. The point is that the most advanced A.I.