Killer Robots Using AI Could Transform Warfare. And China Might Hate That.

By Michael Peck,The National Interest

What happens when you mix killer robots and Communists?

It sounds like the punch line to a Cold War joke, but there are reasons to wonder whether China’s Communist government, which likes to make decisions for its citizens, can work with autonomous armed robots that make their own decisions. Ditto for the People’s Liberation Army and its Soviet-style centralized command and control system.

“In a military context, questions of trust will be paramount,” China expert Elsa Kania told The National Interest.

“Will the PLA be more or less inclined to trust machine intelligence, relative to human intelligence? Will a military organization that often seems unwilling to grant autonomy to its officers and enlisted personnel be willing to embrace the autonomy of AI systems?”

In fact, it is not even clear where China stands on the existence of killer robots.

On the one hand, Beijing has expressed support for an international campaign to ban autonomous robots that kill without human authorization. At the same time, China is developing killer robots such as autonomous combat drone swarms.

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