Killer Flying Robots Are Here - What Now?

In the popular Terminator movies, a relentless super-robot played by Arnold Schwarzenegger tracks and attempts to kill human targets. It was pure science fiction in the 1980s.

Today, killer robots hunting down targets have not only become reality, but are sold and deployed on the field of battle. These robots aren’t cyborgs, like in the movies, but autonomously operating killer drones.

The new Turkish-made Kargu-2 quadcopter drone can allegedly autonomously track and kill human targets on the basis of facial recognition and artificial intelligence—a big technological leap from the drone fleets requiring remote control by human operators.

A United Nations Security Council report claims the Kargu-2 was used in Libya to mount autonomous attacks on human targets. According to the report, the Kargu-2 hunted down retreating logistics and military convoys, ‘attack[ing] targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition.’

The burgeoning availability and rapidly expanding capabilities of drones pose urgent challenges to all of humanity.