The AI Arms Race In 2019

Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking’s activism has failed

Image depicts activists from the “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots” group, protesting outside the United Nations in Geneva

Killer robots have arrived. Admittedly, these ‘lethal autonomous weapons’ are still a long way from superintelligence — AI in 2019 is closer to WALL-E than The Terminator. All the same, the application of artificial intelligence to military technology has been veritably explosive over the last five years; driven especially by intensive state investment from the United States, China, and Russia.

A number of concerned parties saw this escalation coming. Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking were just two of many luminaries who signed the “Lethal Autonomous Weapons Pledge” in 2018 calling for a global ban on autonomous weapons. The pledge denounces such weapons as “dangerously destabilising” and “powerful instruments of oppression”. The Future of Life Institute had organised an even bigger pledge in 2017, explicitly cautioning against the start of a possible arms race in lethal autonomous weapons between the global powers.

This piece will show just how ineffective such activism has been, however well-intentioned. The arms race in AI is already underway — and has been for years. It is now 2019, and we cannot waste time pretending Pandora’s Box hasn’t already been opened. This is the time to take stock of the latent evidence of weaponised AI, and consider the geopolitical…