The world's top artificial intelligence companies are pleading for a ban on killer robots

Elon Musk, founder, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla, speaks at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington, U.S., July 19, 2017. A revolution in warfare where killer robots, or autonomous weapons systems, are common in battlefields is about to start. Both scientists and industry are worried. The world's top artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics companies have used a conference in Melbourne to collectively urge the United Nations to ban killer robots or lethal autonomous weapons. An open letter by 116 founders of robotics and artificial intelligence companies from 26 countries was launched at the world's biggest artificial intelligence conference, the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), as the UN delays meeting until later this year to discuss the robot arms race.