Some of the biggest names in science and technology have called for a global ban on “killer robots”, amid warnings that crossing that threshold would start a new global arms race.
The intervention by more than 1,000 experts in the field of artificial intelligence came in an open letter, which was also signed by Professor Stephen Hawking, the cosmologist, Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, and Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple.
Although “robot soldiers” are still confined to the drawing board, the rapid advances in computational power and artificial intelligence have raised the prospect that the military could field one within two decades.