The Case Against an Autonomous Military

The potential harm of A.I.s deliberately designed to kill in warfare is much more pressing. The U.S. and other countries are working hard to develop military A.I., in the form of automated weapons, that enhance battlefield capabilities while exposing fewer soldiers to injury or death. For the U.S., this would be a natural extension of the existing imperfect drone warfare program—failures in military intelligence have led to the mistaken killing of non-combatants in Iraq.

The Pentagon says that it has no plans to remove humans from the decision process that approves the use of lethal force, but A.I. technology is out-performing humans in a growing number of domains so fast that many fear a run-away global arms race that could easily accelerate toward completely autonomous weaponry—autonomous, but not necessarily with good judgment.

Source: nautil.us