Nearly 2,500 individuals and 160 AI-related companies representing 90 countries have signed a Future of Life Institute (FLI) pledge not to participate in lethal autonomous weapons development.
FLI president Max Tegmark announced the pledge on July 18 at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Stockholm. The annual conference draws over 5,000 international AI researchers.
Notable individuals who signed the pledge include Elon Musk, Stuart Russell, Yoshua Bengio, Anca Dragan, Toby Walsh and Google DeepMind co-founders Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. DeepMind, University College London, ClearPath Robotics/OTTO Motors, the European Association for AI (EurAI) and the Swedish AI Society (SAIS) also signed the pledge, along with scores of other organizations.
Lethal autonomous weapons systems are defined as weapons that can target, identify and kill an individual without human input or interaction. In other words, the AI makes the final decision to use lethal force. As a rule, drones are not lumped into this definition.
The last few months have seen a flurry of media reports about corporate and individual involvement in potentially weaponized AI applications. In early June, Google announced it would not renew its contract with Project Maven, a U.S. Department of Defense project to develop an AI system capable of recognizing faces and individuals in drone footage. The decision came on the heels of widespread employee protests and a petition to cancel the contract that was signed by 4,000 Google workers.
While discussions around hypothetical “killer robots” have circulated for years, Max Tegmark expressed that moving from talk to action is a significant step.
“I’m excited to see AI leaders shifting from talk to action, implementing a policy that politicians have thus far failed to put into effect,” Tegmark said in an FLI press release. “AI has huge potential to help the world – if we stigmatize and prevent its abuse. AI weapons that autonomously decide to kill people are as disgusting and destabilizing as bioweapons, and should be dealt with in the same way.”
In addition to the companies and individuals who signed the pledge, 26 United Nations countries — half of which are located in Central or South America — have explicitly called for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems.
