By Chioma Iruke
Amnesty International (AI) has warned against the replacement of troops with machines designed for countries ease in war.
AI which has begun a campaign with ‘Stop Killer Robots’, said it would be an assault on humanity if machines are allowed to make life-or-death decisions.
In a statement titled, ‘Global: A Critical Opportunity To Ban Killer Robots – While We Still Can’, the human rights group warned that top countries in the world have developed technologies that would be disastrous when used on the battlefield.
This is as Amnesty lamented that negotiations on a new treaty to address the threat posed by killer robots are being stalled by some powerful states.
The statement read, “Amnesty International and the Stop Killer Robots campaign today unveiled a social media filter which provides a terrifying glimpse of the future of war, policing and border control. Escape the Scan, a filter for Instagram and Facebook, is part of a major campaign calling for a new international law to ban autonomous weapons systems. It uses augmented reality (AR) technology to depict aspects of weapons systems that are already in development, such as facial recognition, movement sensors, and the ability to launch attacks on ‘targets’ without meaningful human control.
“Several countries are investing heavily in the development of autonomous weapons, despite the devastating human rights implications of giving machines control over the use of force. In December, a group of UN experts will meet to decide whether to begin negotiating new international law on autonomy in weapons systems. Amnesty International and Stop Killer Robots have launched a petition calling on all governments to voice their support for negotiations.”
The statement quoted Amnesty International’s Senior Advisor on Military, Security and Policing, Verity Coyle as calling for a legally binding international treaty to stop the proliferation of killer robots before its too late.
