Autonomous drones and the future of war in an AI-driven world | Letter

Machines that kill without distinction, answerable to no one, leave no one safe, writes military surgeon Dr Darren Mann Stuart Russell is right that AI’s builders fear losing control of it ( Experts are warning: our AI arms race is putting humanity at risk, 11 August ).

But it is not only a future superintelligence’s problem; it is already loaded into weapons, where a loss of control kills a civilian today, not humanity tomorrow.

An autonomous drone told to clear a “kill box” is the genie your other columnists described ( How do we prevent AI agents from going rogue? It starts with a new kind of measurement, 18 July ): it does what it is told, killing whatever is inside, combatant or child.

The gap between a target and a lawful target is the principle of distinction, which no instruction closes, because the instruction was lawful.

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