'Killer Robot' Lab Faces Boycott from Artificial Intelligence Experts

The artificial intelligence (AI) community has a clear message for researchers in South Korea: Don't make killer robots. Nearly 60 AI and robotics experts from almost 30 countries have signed an open letter calling for a boycott against KAIST, a public university in Daejeon, South Korea, that has been reported to be "develop[ing] artificial intelligence technologies to be applied to military weapons, joining the global competition to develop autonomous arms," the open letter said. In other words, KAIST might be researching how to make military-grade AI weapons. According to the open letter, AI experts the world over became concerned when they learned that KAIST -- in collaboration with Hanwha Systems, South Korea's leading arms company -- opened a new facility on Feb. 20 called the Research Center for the Convergence of National Defense and Artificial Intelligence. Given that the United Nations (U.N.) is already discussing how to safeguard the international community against killer AI robots, "it is regrettable that a prestigious institution like KAIST looks to accelerate the arms race to develop such weapons," the researchers wrote in the letter.