Comment by Alan F. T. Winfield

The second reason I think it’s a bad idea is if the robot-with-a-gun is not remotely controlled by a human but ‘autonomous’. In other words the robot decides, on its own, where to aim its gun and when to fire. Of course there are serious ethical and legal problems with this, like who is responsible if the robot makes a mistake and shoots the wrong person. But I won’t go into those here. Instead I’ll explain the basic technical problem which is – in a nutshell – that robot’s are way too stupid to be given the autonomy to make the decision about what to shoot and when. Even the smartest autonomous mobile robots around today are not much smarter than an insect. Would you trust a robot with the intelligence of an ant, with a gun? I know I wouldn’t. I’m not sure I would even trust a robot with the intelligence of a chimpanzee (probably the next smartest animals to humans) with a gun. [...] Personally I would like to see international laws passed that prohibit the use of robots with guns (a robot arms limitation treaty).