Professor Warns of Terminator-Type Robots in the Future

Many science fictions books and motion pictures depict a future where robots turn deadly on their creators and inflict chaos into society. That could come true in the future, according to one expert.

A professor at the University of Sheffield in England believes that action should be taken to limit the development of robots that can actually think for themselves. Apparently, according to Professor Noel Sharkey, this type of technology already exists. He went on to discuss the programming of such Terminator-type robots, “The nub of it is that robots do not have the necessary discriminatory ability. They can't distinguish between combatants and civilians. People talk about programming the 'laws of war' into a computer to give robots a conscience, so that if the target is a civilian you don't shoot. But for a robot to recognise a civilian you need an exact specification, and one of the problems is there's no specific definition of a civilian. Soldiers have to rely on common sense.” Some of these types of destructive robots are currently being used in Iraq and Afghanistan as pilotless weapons. Such weapons are called Predator and Reaper Drones and are controlled by humans to kill insurgents however; many times civilians are also killed. Prof. Sharkey further said, “The military have a strange view of artificial intelligence based on science fiction. The next thing that's coming, and this is what really scares me, are armed autonomous robots. The robot will do the killing itself. This will make decision-making faster and allow one person to control many robots. A single soldier could initiate a large scale attack from the air and the ground.” Near the end of the interview Sky News that this type of machinery is a long way off but robot arms control needs to be debated on more before things get way out of hand.