https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/stop-killer-robots/emerging-tech-and-ar...
Technology should be used to empower all people, not to reduce us - to stereotypes, labels or just a pattern of 1’s and 0’s.
With growing digital dehumanisation, the Stop Killer Robots coalition works to ensure human control in the use of force. Our campaign calls for new international law on autonomy in weapons systems.
Formed in October 2012 and publicly launched in 2013, we operate globally with 250+ member organisations. A united voice with national, regional and international affect. We are a vibrant, inclusive team driving change to protect our shared humanity for the future.
We didn’t expect a Campaign to Stop Killer Robots to be needed in the world - but it is.
IN THIS SECTION
- Emerging tech and artificial intelligence
- Problems with autonomous weapons
- Digital Dehumanisation
- We can stop killer robots
From smart homes and targeted advertising to the use of robot dogs by police enforcement, artificial intelligence technologies and automated decision-making are now playing a significant role in our lives. Technology can be amazing. But just because we can build something, it doesn’t mean we should. Many technologies with varying degrees of autonomy are already being widely rolled out without pausing to consider the consequences of normalising their use. Why do we need to talk about this?
Because machines don’t see us as people, just another piece of code to be processed and sorted.
Digital Dehumanisation: when machines decide, not people.
The technologies we’re worried about reduce living people to data points. Our complex identities, our physical features and our patterns of behaviour are analysed, pattern-matched and sorted into profiles, with decisions about us made by machines according to which pre-programmed profile we fit into.
This has very real consequences for historically marginalised or vulnerable communities. That’s because technology often cements – rather than challenges – already existing biases about who people are. Stereotypes are entrenched by automated decision-making.
What has this got to do with killer robots?
At the most extreme end of the spectrum of increasing automation lie killer robots.
Advances in technology now allow weapons systems to select and attack targets autonomously. This means that in the use of force, we have less human control over what is happening and why. It means we are closer to machines making decisions over who to kill or what to destroy. And for machines there is no difference between a ‘who’ and a ‘what’.
