Curb on Killer robots

Category
Science & Technology
Published
28th Dec, 2021

Context

For the first time, a majority of the 125 nations that belong to an agreement called the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons said they wanted curbs on killer robots.

About

Autonomous weapon systems – commonly known as killer robots means drones, guns and bombs that decide on their own, with artificial brains, whether to attack and kill.
These systems are robots with lethal weapons that can operate independently, selecting and attacking targets without a human weighing in on those decisions.
Militaries around the world are investing heavilyin autonomous weapons research and development.
The U.S. alone budgeted US$18 billionfor autonomous weapons between 2016 and 2020.

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons or CCW, is also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention.
Purpose: To ban or restrict the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.
The Convention including three annexed protocols was adopted on 10 October 1980 and opened for signature on 10 April 1981 for the duration of one year. A total of 50 States signed the Convention, which entered into force on 2 December 1983.

Issues with autonomous weapons

The problem of misidentification
undermine humanity’s final stopgap against war crimes and atrocities
lack of accountability
legal and moral challenge
Shifting blame game
The problems of low-end and high-end proliferation (autonomous weapons could get into the hands of people outside of government control, including international and domestic terrorists)