Human Rights Watch wants to ban “killer robots”

The Human Rights Watch organisation, in conjunction with the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic, has released a 50-page report asking that the world’s governments ban fully autonomous weapons “before it’s too late” and pitiless Terminator-class cyborgs take over the planet.

Damn it, this is exactly what we didn’t want to happen.

Although entirely unmanned technology is largely undeveloped at this point in time (US Army combat drones are already in active deployment in war zones, but still require human control), the consequences of future unmanned weapon technology are potentially problematic. Without human control, robots would demonstrate an inherent lack of personal accountability or compassion for victims and could not meet the requirements of international humanitarian law.

“Giving machines the power to decide who lives and dies on the battlefield would take technology too far. Human control of robotic warfare is essential to minimising civilian deaths and injuries,” said Steve Goose, Arms Division director at Human Rights Watch.

“It is essential to stop the development of killer robots before they show up in national arsenals. As countries become more invested in this technology, it will become harder to persuade them to give it up.”

This is the same basic “man versus machines” stuff we learned watching sci-fi movies as kids, but countries including America, China, Germany, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom remain involved in unmanned weapon development programs regardless. Maybe it’s because those countries are already secretly controlled by the killer robots. Did anybody consider that?

Obviously, it’s more important right now to invest those military budgets into time travel instead, so in the future we can send somebody back and stop any unmanned weapon development programs before they start. Which would mean there’d be no reason for anybody to go back in time in the first place, and so unmanned weapon development programs would go ahead anyway. WE CAN’T WIN THIS WAR, PEOPLE.