Austria wants ethical rules on battlefield killer robots

Vienna is embarking on a diplomatic initiative to draw up an ethical framework for the use of killer robots on the battlefields of the future. Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said similar standards should be adopted as those established for landmines and cluster weapons. "We have to create rules before killer robots reach the battlefield of this Earth," Schallenberg told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. He said the Austrian government was planning a conference in Vienna in 2021 "to usher in a process "to initiate a process that will hopefully lead to an international convention on the use of artificial intelligence on battlefields." Read more: Should'killer robots' be banned?