Source: AFP
The world should establish a set of rules to regulate artificial intelligence weapons while they are still in their infancy, a global conference said on Tuesday, calling the issue the “Oppenheimer moment” of the era.
Like gunpowder and the atomic bomb, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize warfare, analysts say, by making human conflicts unimaginably different — and far more deadly.
“This is the ‘Oppenheimer moment’ of our generation where geopolitical tensions threaten to lead a major scientific breakthrough down a very dangerous path for the future of humanity,” read the summary at the end of the two-day conference in Vienna.
American physicist Robert Oppenheimer helped invent nuclear weapons during World War II.
Austria organized and hosted the two-day conference in Vienna, which brought together around 1,000 participants, including political leaders, experts and members of civil society, from more than 140 countries.
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A final statement said the group “reaffirms our strong commitment to work urgently and with all stakeholders on an international legal instrument to regulate autonomous weapons systems.”
“We have a responsibility to act and put in place the rules we need to protect humanity… Humane control over the use of force must prevail,” said the summary, which is to be sent to the UN secretary-general.
Using AI, all kinds of weapons can be turned into autonomous systems, thanks to sophisticated sensors governed by algorithms that allow the computer to “see”.
This will allow human targets — or targets containing human beings — to be identified, selected and attacked without human intervention.
Most of the weapons are still in the concept or prototype stage, but Russia’s war in Ukraine has offered a glimpse of their potential.
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Remotely controlled drones are not new, but they are becoming more independent and used by both sides.
“Autonomous weapons systems will soon fill the battlefields of the world,” Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Sallenberg said Monday at the start of the conference.
He warned that now is “the time to agree on international rules and regulations to ensure human control”.
Austria, a neutral country keen to promote disarmament in international forums, in 2023 introduced the first UN resolution to regulate autonomous weapons systems, which was supported by 164 states.
Source: AFP
