Keep killer robots in line, report says

Killer robots that can attack targets without any human input “should not have the power of life and death over human beings,” a new draft UN report says.

The report for the UN Human Rights Commission deals with legal and philosophical issues involved in giving robots lethal powers over humans, echoing countless science fiction novels and films. It was posted online this week.

Report author Christof Heyns, a UN human rights lawyer, calls for a worldwide moratorium on the “testing, production, assembly, transfer, acquisition, deployment and use” of killer robots until an international conference can develop rules for their use.

In the report, Heyns calls them “lethal autonomous robotics,” or LARs for short, and says: “Decisions over life and death in armed conflict may require compassion and intuition. Humans — while they are fallible — at least might possess these qualities, whereas robots definitely do not.”

The report goes beyond the recent debate over drone killings of al-Qaida suspects and nearby civilians who are maimed or killed in the airstrikes. Drones do have human oversight. The killer robots are programmed to make autonomous decisions on the spot without orders from humans.

According to the report, the United States, Britain, Israel, South Korea and Japan have developed various types of fully or semi-autonomous weapons. Among the examples it cites are: ❚ The U.S. Phalanx system for Aegis-class cruisers, which detects, tracks and engages antiair warfare threats. ❚ Israel’s Harpy, a “Fire-andForget” autonomous weapon system designed to detect, attack and destroy radar emitters. ❚ Britain’s Taranis jet-propelled combat drone prototype. ❚ The Samsung Techwin surveillance and security guard robots, deployed in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, to detect targets through infrared sensors. They are currently operated by humans but have an “automatic mode.”