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The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of

Technological progress has brought about the emergence of machines that have the capacity to take human lives without human control. These represent an unprecedented threat to humankind. This paper starts from the example of chemical weapons, now banned worldwide by the Geneva protocol, to illustrat...

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Autor principal: Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10030838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36967833
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frai.2023.1154184
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author Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
author_facet Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
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description Technological progress has brought about the emergence of machines that have the capacity to take human lives without human control. These represent an unprecedented threat to humankind. This paper starts from the example of chemical weapons, now banned worldwide by the Geneva protocol, to illustrate how technological development initially aimed at the benefit of humankind has, ultimately, produced what is now called the “Weaponization of Artificial Intelligence (AI)”. Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) fail the so-called discrimination principle, yet, the wider public is largely unaware of this problem. Given that ongoing scientific research on AWS, performed in the military sector, is generally not made available to the public domain, many of the viewpoints on this subject, expressed across different media, invoke common sense rather than scientific evidence. Yet, the implications of a potential weaponization of our work as scientists, especially in the field of AI, are reaching further than some may think. The potential consequences of a deployment of AWS for citizen stakeholders are incommensurable, and it is time to raise awareness in the public domain of the kind of potential threats identified, and to encourage legal policies ensuring that these threats will not materialize.
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spelling pubmed-100308382023-03-23 The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of Dresp-Langley, Birgitta Front Artif Intell Artificial Intelligence Technological progress has brought about the emergence of machines that have the capacity to take human lives without human control. These represent an unprecedented threat to humankind. This paper starts from the example of chemical weapons, now banned worldwide by the Geneva protocol, to illustrate how technological development initially aimed at the benefit of humankind has, ultimately, produced what is now called the “Weaponization of Artificial Intelligence (AI)”. Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) fail the so-called discrimination principle, yet, the wider public is largely unaware of this problem. Given that ongoing scientific research on AWS, performed in the military sector, is generally not made available to the public domain, many of the viewpoints on this subject, expressed across different media, invoke common sense rather than scientific evidence. Yet, the implications of a potential weaponization of our work as scientists, especially in the field of AI, are reaching further than some may think. The potential consequences of a deployment of AWS for citizen stakeholders are incommensurable, and it is time to raise awareness in the public domain of the kind of potential threats identified, and to encourage legal policies ensuring that these threats will not materialize. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-03-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10030838/ /pubmed/36967833 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frai.2023.1154184 Text en Copyright © 2023 Dresp-Langley. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Artificial Intelligence
Dresp-Langley, Birgitta
The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of
title The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of
title_full The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of
title_fullStr The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of
title_full_unstemmed The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of
title_short The weaponization of artificial intelligence: What the public needs to be aware of
title_sort weaponization of artificial intelligence: what the public needs to be aware of
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10030838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36967833
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frai.2023.1154184
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