Today sees the launch of the official ICRAC Podcast series. The first couple of episodes were recorded at the Convention on Conventional Weapons meeting of experts hosted at the United Nations in Geneva between April 13 and 17 2015. This was a discussion of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), the CCW term for ‘Killer Robots’.

The series begins with an interview of Michael Meier, the head of the United States delegation to the CCW. He talks about how the meeting is panning out and how the US wishes to see the CCW moving forward with LAWS in the short term. There is some important information about what the Department of Defence Directive 3000.09 on autonomous weapons is and what it is not.

The second interview is of Stephen Goose, director of the Human Rights Watch Arms division. He gives quite a different perspective and explains the processes that the CCW will need to go through from where it is now up to full negotiations for a prohibition of LAWS.

The third podcast features Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams. Among other things, she discusses what annoys most her about what opponents of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots say.

There are plenty more interviews from the CCW from a Professor of Law, a professor of Artificial Intelligence, the CTO of a robotic company and members of ICRAC. These will be added as they are produced.

Please visit our podcast page for the complete series.

Author information

nsharkey

Noel SharkeyPhD, DSc FIET, FBCS CITP FRIN FRSA is Professor of AI and Robotics and Professor of Public Engagement at the University of Sheffield and was an EPSRC Senior Media Fellow (2004-2010).