Professor Noel Sharkey, a robotics expert at the University of Sheffield, has warned against the impending threat to humanity, thanks to the development of robot weapons. Addressing the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), he mentioned that the world is moving towards an international robot arms race, wherein robots would become a standard terrorist weapon and replace suicide bombers.
At present, a wide range of countries is in the process of developing the technology for robot weapons. In addition to US, Europe and other allied nation that includes Canada, South Korea, South Africa, Singapore and Israel have initiated the robot weapon program.
According to Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2013 (published in December 2007), it is believed that the US will shell out around $4 billion by 2010 on unmanned systems technology and the overall cost would reach to $24 billion. Moreover, China, Russia and India are also planning to take their first step towards the development of unmanned aerial combat vehicle.
In Iraq, more than 4,000 robots are presently deployed on the ground and an unmanned aircraft had flown 400,000 flight hours in October 2006.
Professor Noel Sharkey, from the University’s Department of Computer Science, stated “The trouble is that we can’t really put the genie back in the bottle. Once the new weapons are out there, they will be fairly easy to copy. How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act?”
He was hesitant explaining how such robots could be made. However he says that a small GPS guided drone with an autopilot could be made for around £250. Looking at the current scenario, robots are dumb machines that have restricted sensing abilities and it cannot be guarantee whether the autonomous weapons would have the ability to distinguish between combatants and innocent.
It is believed that the US is giving priority to robots that will decide on where, when and who to kill.
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