Artificial intelligence

There are a great many articles being written about what the effects of artificial intelligence will be on our world. Will jobs be lost or created? Will depending on programs like ChatGPT cost us our creativity, not to mention our integrity? But I think that our greater concern should be of what is now possible, the development of AI killing machines.

An episode of “Madam Secretary” involved the possibility of using an AI weapon to go into a cave to kill a terrorist, away from communication with humans. In the episode, the robot would have had to find, identify and kill the terrorist on its own. TV show President Elizabeth McCord found the prospect frightening and declined. But in the future, might not a real president bow to the pressure of the moment? The world needs to examine and adopt, as part of the Geneva Conventions, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics.

Asimov’s suggested laws were devised to protect humans from interactions with robots. They are, “‘(1) a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2) a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; (3) a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law,’” according to britannica.com.

Imagine cold machines with the ability to kill. As AI develops, what is to stop humankind from creating a totally out-of-control, unsafe world?