[LINK] Autonomous Weapons in Canberra

[Tom Worthington]

Professor Chris Jenks, from Southern Methodist University, Dedman School 
of Law, will speak on "Crossing the Rubicon: the path to offensive 
autonomous weapons" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 
5:30pm 1 June 2015: 
https://law.anu.edu.au/events/anu-college-law/crossing-rubicon-path-offensive-autonomous-weapons

     "The current fixation with the possibility of autonomous weapons 
attacking humans overlooks their current anti-material applications as 
well as usage domains with minimal chance of civilian casualties. Lethal 
autonomous weapons systems are not coming, they’re already here. 
Militaries have employed defensive autonomous weapon systems for 
decades, and are starting to utilize them in large numbers or swarms.

     At the same time the international community has paused at a legal, 
ethical and moral precipice of utilizing offensive autonomous weapons 
systems, hyperbolically called ‘killer robots’. What may prove the 
catalyst in crossing this Rubicon is that the most effective way to 
attack a defence comprised of swarming autonomous defensive systems is 
with their offensive analog. And the advancements in defensive systems 
necessitating consideration of this decision will flow from the surge in 
commercial use of unmanned aerial systems beginning this year with the 
United States issuing regulations for their domestic use.

     The employment of increasingly autonomous offensive systems will 
not be predicated on advancements in artificial intelligence but rather 
on a time honored principle of military technological advances – 
development of an effective measure inevitably leads to equally if not 
more effective counter measures."


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/