The Future of Artificial Intelligence

Ten years ago, Human Rights Watch united with other civil society groups to co-found the Stop Killer Robots campaign in response to emerging military technologies in which machines would replace human control in the use of armed force. There is now widespread recognition that weapons systems that select and attack targets without meaningful human control represent a dangerous development in warfare, with equally disastrous implications for policing. At the United Nations in October, 70 countries, including the United States, acknowledged that autonomy in weapons systems raises "serious concerns from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives." Delegating life-and-death decisions to machines crosses a moral line, as they would be incapable of appreciating the value of human life and respecting human dignity. Fully autonomous weapons would reduce humans to objects or data points to be processed, sorted and potentially targeted for lethal action.