Shadow of the smart machine: Would it be wise to create an 'Intelligent Gun'?

Learning machines are capable of working ever more autonomously on ever more complex tasks. In this blog, Muz Janoowalla explores whether it would be smart for humankind to develop an'intelligent gun'. There are an estimated 875 million civilian, law-enforcement, and military firearms in the world, of which 650 million are in the hands of civilians, either legally or illegally. Given the plethora of high-profile gun attacks in recent months and years – particularly in the US, but also in France, Norway, Pakistan and Tunisia, to name but a few – it is disturbingly easy to imagine gunmen on the loose in a school or at a public event, shooting indiscriminately and leaving casualties in their wake. Imagine how different things could be if a gun had artificial intelligence built into it, turning it into an intelligent gun.