Ban on deployment of ‘killer robots’ urged by rights group

Hollywood-style robots able to shoot people without permission from their human handlers are a real possibility and must be banned before governments start deploying them, Human Rights Watch has warned.

The report Losing Humanity — co-produced by Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic — also raises the alarm over the ethics of the looming technology.

Calling them “killer robots,” it urges “an international treaty that would absolutely prohibit the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons”.