- Australian army chief has warned against robots that can ‘kill on their own will’
- Lieutenant-General Campbell said ‘unethical enemies’ may be developing them
- Russia and China have demonstrated an intention to work on such machines
- Aussie military will have to think about how it deals such adversaries, he said
The Chief of the Australian army has warned ‘artificially intelligent drones that can kill on their own will’ could pose a danger to the values of the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Speaking to Fairfax Media, Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell said there would certainly be countries and terrorist groups with ‘lower ethical standards’ that would have no qualms about using autonomous killing machines.
Australia and the US have both confirmed that they will never have machines that can ‘kill without a green light from a human’.
Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell said that there would certainly be countries and terrorist groups with ‘lower ethical standards’ that would have no qualms about using killing machines
Australia confirmed it will never use machines that can ‘kill without a green light from a human’
While he didn’t mention any countries in particular, Russia and China have both demonstrated a clear intention to push ahead with such technology.
Australia’s military and its broader society would have to think about how it deals such adversaries, Lieutenant-General Campbell said.
However, he did stress less ethical armies are not guaranteed to be any better at fighting.
The Chinese army (pictured) have demonstrated an intention to push ahead with military AI
Lieutenant-General Campbell likened the issue to other advances in artificial intelligence such as driverless cars, which he says have ‘similar ethical and practical questions’.
‘I think not just the military but society … is going to go through a period of learning and understanding what is the right point of comfortably accepted machine analysis, integration, filtering, and machine decision,’ he said.
Campbell like military robots to artificial intelligence advances like driverless cars (pictured)
The army is currently fifteen years into a 25-year project to fully digitise all aspects of the ADF
Lieutenant-General Campbell said that in his opinion, technology had not reached the stage where it could function without human interaction.
He said the ADF would be able enhance its ‘punch’ by combining their land, air, maritime and cyber power.
The army is currently 15 years into a 25-year project to fully digitise all aspects of the army, including communication.