Killer Robots have been a fixture of science fiction for decades but now they are becoming a very real possibility.
The Canadian Campaign to Stop Killer Robots works for a ban on fully autonomous weapons (robotic weapons that can choose and fire on targets without any human intervention unlike drones that continue to have a human at the controls from a remote location). We believe that the creation of fully autonomous weapons is a line that should not be crossed. We are calling for a pre-emptive and comprehensive ban on the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons. The prohibition should be achieved through Canadian national law and an international treaty.
The Canadian Campaign to Stop Killer Robots has multiple moral, ethical, legal, technical and policy concerns with the prospect of fully autonomous weapons. It believes that humans should not delegate the responsibility of making lethal decisions in conflict to machines. The development of fully autonomous weapons and the associated risks to civilians are an affront to Canadian values of humanitarianism, personal responsibility, peace, order and good governance.
I find the idea of machines making life or death decisions in conflict abhorrent. I call on the Government of Canada to immediately prohibit the development and deployment of fully autonomous weapons (killer robots) in Canada and to support efforts to create a pre-emptive global ban on the technology.