Human Rights Watch Campaigns Against 'Killer Robots'

Technology is moving fast when it comes to "autonomous systems" - intelligent machines that perform tasks with little or no human guidance.

In modern warfare, drones and other unmanned vehicles are playing an increasing role, with militaries embracing a technology that they say makes war safer and more effective. But human rights campaigners fear what might be to come - fully autonomous weapons that could select and engage targets without human intervention - and they want a new global treaty to stop that from happening.

​​In Israel, the country's missile defense system, the Iron Dome, autonomously senses the threat of an incoming rocket and sends a warning to an operator, who then gives the command to fire a missile. 

Human Rights Watch has jointly published a report with the Harvard Law School's International Rights Clinic arguing that within 30 years militaries could be armed with autonomous "killer robots."

"There also needs to be a public discussion around some of the wider applications, such as in the use of disaster management and humanitarian relief," said Rosemont. "These technologies can be deployed and have been in those circumstances, and that should be part of the wider discussion in what we think of as autonomy."

He said robots could well do the world plenty of good in the years to come. France sent remote controlled robots to Japan to help contain the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year - just one job better left to machines.

 

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