Ian Kerr: A Ban On Killer Robots Is The Ethical Choice

August 8, 2015 CLTS

“A ban on killer robots is the ethical choice”, Ottawa Citizen, July 31, 2015 C9

This opinion editorial, published by the Ottawa Citizen, describes the recent “Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers”, calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons and explains why I am a signatory. In addition to concerns about a global AI arms race, I argue that the decision to ban killer robots is the ethical choice because delegating life-or-death decisions to machines crosses a fundamental moral line. I further argue that playing Russian roulette with the lives of others can never be justified merely on the basis of efficacy. In the end, the decision whether to ban killer robots is not only a fundamental issue of human rights; it goes to the core of our humanity.

Keep Killer Robots Fictional

April 27, 2014 CLTS

This editorial first appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on April 26, 2016. The published version can be read here.

Given the perceived military success of unmanned drones and other semi-autonomous weapons, many proponents of robotic warfare are pushing for the next phase of development: fully autonomous weapons. Once developed and deployed, these weapons — killer robots, as they have become known — would be able to select their own targets and fire on them, without human intervention.

The Meaning of Watson

February 19, 2011 CLTS

The Jeopardy! winning machine creates only the illusion of intelligence, writes Ian Kerr. But maybe that’s the point.

The Devil is in the Defaults

May 29, 2010 CLTS

If Facebook were truly committed to protecting privacy, it would start with the assumption that people want less access to their information, not more

Robot Law Is Taking Over

September 15, 2009 CLTS

Amazon's ironic decision to delete Kindle users' copies of 1984 shows the old rules about copyright, ownership and privacy don't apply to today's technology

A little over a year ago, in one of the most important privacy cases ever heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, Justice Ian Binnie sought to allay concerns that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society with the following remark: "On these occasions, critics usually refer to 'Orwellian dimensions' and 1984, but the fact is that 1984 came and went without George Orwell's fears being entirely realized, although he saw earlier than most the direction in which things might be heading."

Like most judicial pronouncements with staying power, I still haven't quite figured out what he meant by this. Was the judge simply saying that the worries expressed by privacy advocates are sometimes overblown? Or was his clever, lawyerly use of the word "entirely" a tongue-in-cheek expression of genuine concern?

Searching For The Right Balance

May 5, 2008 CLTS

We can reasonably be suspicious of sliding standards for subjecting Canadian citizens to searches by sniffer dogs -- or the next detection technology

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada released two important privacy-related decisions, both addressing an increasing trend in which Canadian law enforcement agencies use police dogs to conduct random searches of public spaces.

In the coming years, dog searches are sure to be supplemented by electronic noses, sensor networks, artificial intelligence and other highly automated systems that can operate much more conspicuously and effectively than snoop dogs. If they are subject to the same legal standards set out by the majority of the Supreme Court last Friday, it will be the state and not its subjects who will be engaging in "an elongated stare."