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The founders of 116 robotics and artificial intelligence companies have called for a ban on the use of lethal autonomous weapons in the wake of the postponement of UN talks on regulating “killer robots”.
联合国关于管制“杀手机器人”的会谈延期之后，116家机器人和人工智能企业的创始人呼吁禁止使用致命自主武器。
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and OpenAI, and Mustafa Suleyman, founder and head of applied AI at Google’s Deepmind, are among the signatories of an open letter warning that lethal autonomous weapons would permit “armed conflict to be fought on a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend”.
SpaceX和OpenAI的创始人埃隆?马斯克(Elon Musk)，以及谷歌(Google) DeepMind创始人之一、现负责DeepMind应用人工智能(applied AI)的穆斯塔法?苏莱曼(Mustafa Suleyman)等人签署了一封公开信，这封信警告说，致命自主武器会让“武装冲突的规模超过以往任何时候，时间跨度快到人类无法理解”。
“This new arms race has already begun in every sphere of the battlefield — air, at sea and on land,” said Toby Walsh, professor of AI at University of New South Wales and one of the signatories of the letter. “These autonomous weapons threaten to industrialise war and the way we kill people. If they become part of the military industrial complex they will end up being used against civilians.”
这封公开信的签署者之一、新南威尔士大学(University of New South Wales)从事AI研究的教授托比?沃尔什(Toby Walsh)表示：“这场新的军备竞赛已然在战场的各个领域——空、海、陆——展开了。这些自主武器有可能将战争和我们杀人的方式工业化。如果它们成为‘军工复合体’的一部分，最终它们将被用来攻击平民。”
In December, 123 member nations of the UN’s review conference of the convention on conventional weapons agreed to begin formal discussions on autonomous weapons. Of these, 19 have already called for an outright ban. But the talks, which were due to begin on Monday, have been postponed as several member nations have not paid their financial contributions to the UN.
去年12月，联合国《常规武器公约》审议大会的123个成员国同意开始正式讨论自主武器。其中19个成员国已要求彻底禁止这种武器。但由于若干成员国尚未向联合国缴纳会费，因此原定于本周一开始的会议已被推迟。
The letter indicates regrets that the UN’s first meeting has been cancelled and urges all parties to double their efforts in advance of a planned November meeting. The authors of the letter said it was the first time that AI and robotics companies have taken a joint stance on the issue, although in 2015 a group of technology leaders called for a ban on autonomous weapons.
这封公开信对联合国第一次会议被取消表示遗憾，并敦促各方在计划好的11月会议之前加倍努力。公开信的作者们表示，这是AI企业和机器人企业在该问题上首次采取共同立场，尽管2015年一批科技企业领导人曾呼吁禁止自主武器。
The US, China and Israel are among nations rushing to develop autonomous weapons technology, which has the capability to independently compose and select particular courses of action without relying on the judgment of a human controller.
美国、中国和以色列等国正在积极开发自主武器技术，这种武器有能力独立设计和选择具体的作战方案，而不依赖于人类操控者的判断。
Advances in AI technology are making it possible to cede to computers many tasks long regarded as impossible to be undertaken by machines, including in modern warfare.
AI技术的进步使得许多长期以来被认为不可能由机器完成的任务（包括现代作战）可以交由电脑来完成。
But the adoption of the type of AI technology that featured in the Terminator film franchise, for instance, remains fraught with practical and ethical issues and has alarmed experts.
但是，某些类型的AI技术（比如《终结者》(Terminator)系列电影中展现的那种）的采用，在现实和伦理层面仍问题重重，并令专家们感到担忧。
“We should not lose sight of the fact that, unlike other potential manifestations of AI that still remain in the realm of science fiction, autonomous weapons systems are on the cusp of development right now,” said Ryan Gariepy, founder of Clearpath Robotics, who was the first of the 116 company founders to sign the letter.
Clearpath Robotics创始人瑞恩?加里皮(Ryan Gariepy)表示：“我们不应忽视这一事实，即与其他仍停留在科幻小说中的潜在AI技术不同，自主武器系统现在马上就要开发出来了。”加里皮是116位公司创始人里第一个签署公开信的人。
“The development of lethal autonomous weapons systems is unwise, unethical and should be banned on an international scale.”
“发展致命自主武器系统(LAWS)是不明智、不道德的，应该在全世界被禁止。”
Some autonomous weapons systems have already been developed, including a robot sentry gun designed by a South Korean arms manufacturer Dodaam Systems. Its Super aEgis II machine gun is capable of identifying, tracking and destroying a target at a great distance without human operators.
一些自主武器系统已经开发完成，包括由韩国武器制造商Dodaam Systems设计的机枪哨兵机器人。这家公司的Super aEgis II机枪能够在没有人类操作者的情况下识别、追踪和摧毁远程目标。
However, the company has told media that all of its customers so far have asked for safeguards to be embedded in the robot that requires human operators to authorise any lethal shooting.
但该公司向媒体表示，到目前为止，所有客户都要求给这种机器人嵌入保险措施，要求任何致命射击都需取得人类操作者授权。
Defence experts say autonomous weapons systems have the potential to save lives on the battlefield. Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system has been credited with shooting down scores of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. Iron Dome uses technology that is programmed to respond automatically to threatening artillery or rockets.
防务专家表示自主武器系统有可能在战场上拯救生命。以色列的“铁穹”(Iron Dome)反火箭弹系统因击落数十枚从加沙射向以色列的火箭弹而受到赞誉。“铁穹”所使用的技术被程序设定为自动响应威胁性火炮或火箭弹。
The UK opposes banning autonomous weapons systems. A US department of defence report last year recommended accelerating exploitation of autonomous technology to “realise the potential military value and to remain ahead of adversaries who also will exploit its operational benefits”.
英国反对禁止自主武器系统。去年美国国防部的一份报告建议加快自主武器技术的开发，以“实现潜在的军事价值，并（让我们）继续领先于那些也将对其作战优势加以利用的对手”。
