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UN Passes First Resolution on AI Weapons, Seems Cool With Them

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The UN has just passed a resolution about AI weapons, but did not prohibit these satanic firecrackers. 

For the uninitiated, a UN resolution is a statement that the United Nations makes about incoming headaches for the world. Different countries can ignore these resolutions, and often do, because a resolution is not legally binding.

At the moment, the UN is trying to work out what the hell to do with self-governing weapons. They are weapons that can make their own decisions about who or what to attack, without a human controlling it. 

They are also called autonomous weapons or lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). 

These self-governing weapons use sensors and software to identify and target objects or people that match a certain profile, such as a shape, a movement, or a heat signature. A self-governing weapon can be activated by a human, but the human does not know exactly when, where, or how the weapon will strike. 

A self-governing weapon could be a drone, a robot, a missile, or a landmine that can choose its own targets and fire at them.

What a time to be alive! 

Or… soon dead.

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Bit hot lately!

Self-governing weapons are already everywhere

Self-governing weapons are not science fiction, they are already being developed and used by many countries. Some argue that self-governing weapons could make war more efficient, accurate, and safe, because they could reduce human errors, emotions, and casualties. 

The U.N. members agreed to apply international law to self-governing weapons but did not ban them. If that isn’t an ineffective meeting with zero result then what is?

The U.S., United Kingdom, Ukraine and Germany were among the countries who backed the resolution. The countries that were against it were Belarus, India, Mali, Russia,and Niger. 

The abstention list were Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, North Korea, Syria, and UAE. Abstentions are when countries do not support or oppose the resolution, but they do not want to be part of the decision.

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Multiple militaries are advancing their plans for self-governing weapons. The U.S. has already allocated billions into AI-loaded weapons.

The Pentagon’s AI-weapon programmes include Replicator, using many small, cheap self-governing drones to overwhelm a target.

What a future we have ahead of us.