Chesley Bonestell, “The Exploration of Mars” (1953), oil on board, 143/8 x 28 inches, gift of William Estler, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Reproduced courtesy of Bonestell LLC.

Google Bans AI Development for Weapons

June 12, 2018

6/12/18 – The technology giant Google will not develop artificial intelligence (AI) for use in weapons or other applications “that cause or are likely to cause overall harm,” its chief executive has announced in setting forth a set of principles to guide the company’s work in the field. The move aligns with a recent exploration by two scholars in Issues of whether and how AI should be regulated. They suggested that banning “fully autonomous weapons that operate entirely independent of human input” makes sense, while also calling for an interlocking oversight system for making decisions about “many if not all so-called smart technologies.”