US And China Moving Toward ‘Killer Robots’ As Others Want Controls

ANALYSIS – The United States and Communist China are in a deadly race to gain dominance in AI-powered weapons systems, these include autonomous weapons, drones and robots, where the artificial intelligence can decide whether to kill or not.

As Business Insider notes:” The use of the so-called “killer robots” would mark a disturbing development, say critics, handing life and death battlefield decisions to machines with no human input.”

The U.S., China and Israel are among countries developing “killer robots.” But neither China, Russia, Iran, India or Pakistan have signed a U.S.-initiated pledge to use military AI responsibly.

Meanwhile, with its new ‘Replicator’ drone swarm initiative, the Pentagon is intent on fielding multiple thousands of relatively inexpensive, expendable AI-enabled autonomous vehicles by 2026 to keep pace with China.

In a speech on August 28, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, said technology like AI-controlled drones would enable the U.S. to offset China’s People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) numerical advantage in weapons and people.

“We’ll counter the PLA’s mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat,” she said. (RELATED: Watch Submachine Gun-Equipped Robot Dog Ripping It Up at Shooting Range)

However, multiple governments are calling on the United Nations to impose legally binding restrictions on lethal autonomous weapons.

The U.S., Russia, Australia and Israel are pushing for a nonbinding resolution. The conflicting views among these countries raise concerns about AI-driven weapons’ ethical and security implications.

Business Insider (BI) noted:

“This is really one of the most significant inflection points for humanity,” Alexander Kmentt, Austria’s chief negotiator on the issue, told The Times. “What’s the role of human beings in the use of force — it’s an absolutely fundamental security issue, a legal issue and an ethical issue.”

In the meantime, Ukraine has already reportedly used drone surface craft packed with explosives to attack Russian shipping. “Uncrewed aerial systems have already taken crewed reconnaissance helicopters out of a lot of their missions,” said Mick Ryan, a former Australian army major general.

“We are starting to see ground-based artillery observers [in Ukraine] replaced by drones,” Ryan added.

Despite the desire by some countries for controls on AI-powered ‘killer robots,’ the United States is unlikely to restrict itself too much. Especially since China has no such concerns. (RELATED: Pentagon Wants Swarms Of AI-Piloted Drones To Defeat China)

As BI reported:

Frank Kendall, the Air Force secretary, told The Times that AI drones will need to have the capability to make lethal decisions while under human supervision.

“Individual decisions versus not doing individual decisions is the difference between winning and losing — and you’re not going to lose,” he said.

“I don’t think people we would be up against would do that, and it would give them a huge advantage if we put that limitation on ourselves.”

But, retired Air Force Gen. Jack Shanahan, the inaugural Pentagon AI chief, has said that the only weapons systems that he currently trusts to operate autonomously are wholly defensive, like Phalanx anti-missile systems on ships.

C4ISRNET reported: “He worries less about autonomous weapons making decisions on their own than about systems that don’t work as advertised or kill noncombatants or friendly forces.”

The outlet added:

The department’s current chief digital and AI officer Craig Martell is determined not to let that happen.

“Regardless of the autonomy of the system, there will always be a responsible agent that understands the limitations of the system, has trained well with the system, has justified confidence of when and where it’s deployable — and will always take the responsibility,” said Martell, who previously headed machine-learning at LinkedIn and Lyft. “That will never not be the case.”

So, the idea of a fully autonomous killer robot in the U.S. inventory is still unlikely, at least in the short term. Meanwhile, the AI threat from Communist China grows unabated, especially in space.

China envisions using AI, including on satellites, to “make decisions on who is and isn’t an adversary,” U.S. Space Force chief technology and innovation officer Lisa Costa, told an online conference this month.

As adversaries race forward with AI tech, the U.S. may have to decide on whether to allow these systems autonomy sooner than we would like.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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