The report ‘The State of AI: Artificial Intelligence, the Military and Increasingly Autonomous Weapons’ shows that an Artificial Intelligence (AI) arms race is in its infancy and warns of potentially catastrophic results for humanity if states do not ensure human control over emerging weapons technology. The report outlines the status of AI in military projects of seven countries: United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Israel and South Korea.
PAX calls for states to agree to international rules banning lethal autonomous weapons and for the global private sector to agree not to work on the development of these weapons. The report urges states to work together, with the international scientific community and with the private sector to protect humanity from an AI arms race that will be without winners. States should not be asking ‘How can we win the AI arms race?’ but rather ‘How can we prevent an AI arms race?’
Weapon systems that can autonomously select and attack targets raise many legal, ethical and security concerns. This is why PAX aims for a ban on the development, production and deployment of autonomous weapons. Already in 2011 PAX warned about this development and in April 2013 PAX co-founded the international Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.