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from https://www.thenational.scot/politics/19705780.world-woefully-ill-prepared-rise-killer-robots/

The world is woefully ill-prepared for the rise of killer robots

By Alyn Smith @AlynSmith
Columnist
A ban on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems is one that many fully support

LIFE is often stranger than fiction. Whilst the idea of killer robots
may seem like something out of Terminator, they already exist and are
being increasingly used. A new era of warfare is upon us and we are
woefully ill-prepared.

Last week, I had the privilege of joining Amnesty International and Stop
Killer Robots for the launch of a new social media campaign
#EscapeTheScan. The goal of the campaign is straightforward – to raise awareness amongst the general public on the dangers of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) and to encourage lawmakers around the world to
work together to ban these weapons.


The premise of the filter is also deceptively simple – can you avoid
being detected by the AI within 10 seconds? Escape and you live, fail
and you’re eliminated.

Spoiler alert: you can’t escape, much like in the real world. More terrifyingly, you would likely not even have 10 seconds to act – the algorithms would kick in, the 1s and 0s would whir and your details
would be processed for elimination. Even though it is only a filter, it
was disconcerting to see the process unfold in real time if you were the
target of LAWS, knowing that if you were targeted, you would have little
to no chance of escape.

It is an important and timely campaign. Earlier this year, the UN
Security Council published a report which demonstrated that LAWS had
been used in Libya’s Civil War to devastating effect since forces “were neither trained nor motivated to defend against the effective use of
this new technology and usually retreated in disarray”.

Last week, the Australian military also announced a foray into the world
of LAWS when they announced it had contracted technology firm GaardTech
to supply Jaeger-C unmanned combat vehicles featuring both anti-tank and anti-personnel capabilities. The accompanying video footage demonstrates
how these robots “swarm” a target using a range of capabilities to take
it out.

Outside of the battlefield, drones have been used in terrorist incidents
across the Middle East, such as the attack on Saudi Arabia’s largest oil processing facility in 2019 which cut the country’s oil production in
half – about 5% of the world’s oil supply. In a chilling demonstration
of the technology’s potential, on Sunday the Iraqi prime minister
narrowly survived an exploding drone attack on his own home, within the
heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

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More examples can be given but you get the point. The world is very
different now from what it was even 10 or 20 years ago. Killer robots
are no longer the realm of science fiction but a real and present
danger. It is why in December, a group of UN experts will meet to decide whether to begin negotiating a new international law on autonomy in
weapons systems. A comprehensive ban on LAWS is one that I and many of
my colleagues fully support.

Digital dehumanization is going too far. Technology should be used to
empower all people, not to reduce us to data points. Here are people's reactions to our interactive filter Escape The Scan with @bankillerrobots
Sign our petition to ban killer robots 👉 https://t.co/XEphyUtLLY pic.twitter.com/SowLU9mVcf

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) November 9, 2021
Taking a human life should not be an easy decision and it is a decision
which must never be taken out of human hands. We know that many
surveillance systems result in unconscious bias and racial profiling,
thereby embedding institutional inequalities. We also know that
authoritarian governments are keen to exploit any technology which gives
them unparalleled control over the lives of their citizens. In China,
the programme of mass surveillance enables the government to find and
locate an individual in a city of millions within minutes whilst facial recognition has also been used to repress the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.


Give this surveillance the powers of a lethal weapon and the
consequences of this digital dehumanisation will be tragic for civil
society and activists around the world. The speed at which LAWS process
targets leaves little room for error whilst also risks kicking off an
arms race, causing further instability in an increasingly unstable world.

By making war cheap, LAWS will cheapen human lives. It is therefore
imperative that the nations of the world take concerted action now to
stop their development.

This was why I put forward a Private Members Bill last year which would
have outlawed the development and export of LAWS, as well as providing
some much-needed scrutiny on the UK’s arms exports. With the support of
my colleagues, we sought to deliver on our 2019 manifesto commitment
which support an international ban of LAWS. It is therefore
disappointing that the UK Government has refused to follow suit, albeit unsurprising given their preference for diabolical warfare over
strategic considerations.


The defence industry would also stand to benefit from the ban of these
weapons. Defence companies represent important research and development, precision manufacturing, high-end engineering, academic contributions
and partnerships, and aerospace developments that are key parts of
Scotland’s economy now and going forward. They also play a part in the defence ecosystem and the national security of these islands. In banning
LAWS, it would go some way to remove the stigma that is associated with
defence companies by some quarters.

We have been here before. Land mines and cluster bombs used to be used
around the world until civil society worked together to pressure
lawmakers into outlawing these dangerous weapons. The spread of nuclear
weapons has been limited in many ways by the efforts of ordinary
citizens and hard-working NGOs. Already there are signs of similar
success being made in the campaign to ban LAWs, with 30 countries
stating their opposition to development of these weapons and their use
in warfare. More action is still needed but the signs are looking
promising that we will be able to nip the use of this dangerous
technology in the bud.

And it should be nipped in the bud. Progress on the issue has stalled in Westminster but that’s not to mean it is off the agenda. Without
concerted international action, LAWS will continue to be a real and
present danger to civil society activists, minorities and the world at
large.

Weapons must be kept in the hands of people rather than computers and
always used as a last resort. Going to war should never be a decision
taken lightly; banning LAWs will go a long way towards ensuring that
such heavy decisions are made by humans rather than AI programmes. It is
why I am more than happy to give my full support to Amnesty’s Ban Killer Robots campaign to outlaw Lethal Autonomous Weapons and I hope that my parliamentary colleagues in these islands and around the world will give
their full support as well.


www.amnesty.org/en/petition/stop-killer-robots

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