Researchers to boycott South Korean university over AI weapons work

BERLIN (Reuters) - Over 50 top Artificial Intelligence researchers on Wednesday announced a boycott of KAIST, South Korea's top university, after it opened what they called an AI weapons lab with one of South Korea's largest companies. The researchers, based in 30 countries, said they would refrain from visiting KAIST, hosting visitors from the university, or cooperating with its research programs until it pledged to refrain from developing AI weapons without "meaningful human control". KAIST, which opened the center in February with Hanwha Systems, one of two South Korean makers of cluster munitions, responded within hours, saying it had "no intention to engage in development of lethal autonomous weapons systems and killer robots." University President Sung-Chul Shin said the university was "significantly aware" of ethical concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence, adding, "I reaffirm once again that KAIST will not conduct any research activities counter to human dignity including autonomous weapons lacking meaningful human control." The university said the new Research Centre for the Convergence of National Defence and Artificial Intelligence would focus on using AI for command and control systems, navigation for large unmanned undersea vehicles, smart aircraft training and tracking and recognition of objects.