Stop the killer robots, warns professor

By SHÂN ROSS
Published 5th Apr 2015, 03:01 BST
Prof Noel Sharkey fears a robotic arms race, involving technologically advanced nations like the UK, US, China and Russia. Picture: GettyProf Noel Sharkey fears a robotic arms race, involving technologically advanced nations like the UK, US, China and Russia. Picture: Getty
Prof Noel Sharkey fears a robotic arms race, involving technologically advanced nations like the UK, US, China and Russia. Picture: Getty
THEY are indestructible cyb­orgs or fully autonomous killer robots capable of selecting and killing human targets.

They were demonised in Hollywood blockbuster The Terminator, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger played a cyborg sent from 2029 to ass­assinate a woman whose unborn son would lead humanity in a battle against machines.

That plot may have seemed far-fetched, but tomorrow Professor Noel Sharkey, one of the world’s leading campaigners fighting to ban the use of killer robots, or lethal “fully autonomous weapons”, is due to give a lecture in Edinburgh – “Robotic Right And Wrong” – on his battle to establish an international treaty to prohibit the dev­elopment of such weapons.

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Prof Sharkey, a roboticist and chair of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, a non-government org­anisation seeking limits on robotic military hardware, will tell an audience at the 2015 Edinburgh International Science Festival that governments need to take urgent action to address the rapidly developing technology.