The attack of the killer drones

A new arms race is under way – to develop autonomous weapons. How concerned should we be?

Are such weapons already in use? They’ve been around for decades. The origins of autonomous weapons – which can, as it were, think for themselves – are usually traced to WWII, when German acoustic torpedoes were designed to home in on enemy ships’ engines. In the Cold War, computers and precision guidance technology made possible missile defence systems such as Patriot and Aegis, which were able to detect, track and shoot down incoming missiles without human intervention. Now, thanks to the growth of robotics and artificial intelligence, this class of armaments is expanding fast, and “lethal autonomous weapons systems” – able to select, locate and destroy targets without requiring human control – are causing concern across the world. What sort of weapons are available? There’s Samsung’s SGR-A1 sentry robot, installed on South Korea’s…

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The Week United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, V. 1236

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