MUNICH – The Munich Security Conference is an annual catalog of horrors. But the most ominous discussion last weekend wasn’t about Islamic State terrorism but a new generation of weapons – such as killer robots and malignly programmed “smart” appliances that could be deployed in a future conflict.
Behind the main events at the annual discussion of foreign and defense policy here was a topic described in one late-night session as “The Future of Warfare: Race With the Machines.” The premise was that we are at the dawn of a new era of conflict in which all wars will be, to some extent, cyber wars, and new weapons will combine radical advances in hardware, software and even biology.
David IgnatiusEspen Barth Eide, the former foreign minister of Norway, imagined a future weapon that fuses GPS guidance, facial-recognition technology and artificial intelligence and can be programmed like an electronic hit man. Kenneth Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch, noted the advantages of such “killer robots” for military planners: They don’t get tired, they wouldn’t get scared, and they would exercise consistent, if merciless, judgment.
“The genie will come out of the bottle,” predicted retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former NATO commander who now runs the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. He noted that “warfare has always been a process of invention and adjustment.” A century ago, many people thought submarines were terrifying and unethical. Compared with, say, land mines or nuclear bombs, the effects of the new high-tech weapons may be less toxic and more precise.
The big worry in the future, argued several tech experts, may not be data privacy – forget about that – but data security. “You can know my blood type, but don’t change it,” one speaker explained. Hackers may be able to alter data in financial markets, hospitals and electronic grids – paralyzing normal economic and social activity.