The US military could be deploying killer AI robots in four years, Google's ex-chief says in a "shocking and frightening" report.
President Joe Biden was urged to get America "AI ready by 2025" to get ahead of potential threats from China or Russia.
Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt warned the Asian superpowers can't be stopped developing their own autonomous killing machines.
He said in a co-authored report that Russia or China's commitments to any global bans on them “likely would be empty ones.”
But the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has been calling for a ban on killer robots since November 2018.
He believes that “machines that have the power and the discretion to take human lives are politically unacceptable, are morally repugnant, and should be banned by international law".
Professor Noel Sharkey, a spokesman for the Campaign To Stop Killer Robots, branded the report “shocking and frightening” as it “could lead to the proliferation of AI weapons-making decisions about who to kill".
He told the BBC: “The most senior AI scientists on the planet have warned them about the consequences, and yet they continue. This will lead to grave violations of international law.”
The report called for the US Congress to make a $40bn investment “to expand and democratize federal AI research and development (R&D)" have “an ambitious agenda”.
It said the cash would fix the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community's "alarming talent deficit" and make the US “AI-ready by 2025.”
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The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence report recommended the US to reject a global AI-powered autonomous weapons ban, arguing that similar commitments from Russia or China “likely would be empty ones.”
The 756-page report was compiled by 15 commissioners led by Mr Schmidt and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert Work, reports TechTheLead.
The official paper said the military could use killer AI droids to “compress decision time frames” giving the upper hand over enemies.
They could be used in situations that involve military responses that humans cannot make fast enough on their own, the website said.
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The report also set out how the US could make the AI machines act lawfully and safely by ensuring they were authorised by a human commander or operator.
Using AI-powered autonomous weapon systems should also stick to international humanitarian law, it claimed.
The authors argued DoD’s existing weapons review and targeting procedures were enough to ensure the weapons would be deployed lawfully.
The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots was launched in 2013 and seeks to preemptively ban lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS).
More than 30 countries have backed a ban on AI weapons including China but not Russia, Iran, North Korea, the US or the UK.
China backed a ban on using LAWS but not on their development or manufacturing.
The country's military has reportedly been significantly investing in robotics, swarming, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning,, weapon systems which are all advertised as “autonomous” or “intelligent” by the Chinese defense industry.
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