Elon Musk and 115 robotics experts write to the UN "raising the alarm" on killer robots

Back in 2015, more than 1,000 academics sent an open letter calling for a ban on "offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control." A ban has yet to materialise, so just as "Do They Know It's Christmas?" It's shorter, and there are fewer signatories – perhaps because of the time pressures involved for publication to match the UN's own schedules, or perhaps because getting the talks started in the first place was seen as victory enough for many academics. Either way, there are 116 signatories from 26 countries this time, once again including Tesla founder Elon Musk (who is outspoken on the potential dangers of AI) and Google DeepMind's Mustafa Suleyman – both veterans of the last letter. While the 2015 original letter calls for an outright ban on autonomous weapons, the new letter stops short, leaving a lot to the imagination.