A global coalition is calling on Canada and other governments to ban autonomous weapons that would select targets and use force without further human intervention or oversight.

Join a panel of four experts for a 90-minute discussion that will provide an overview of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, its principle concerns, and recent developments at the UN, including Canada’s role and possible implications of the recent federal election in Canada.

The future is coming and you’re invited to explore the ethical, political, legal, and moral implications of how we use force in armed conflicts. Full press release can be found here.

Event details:

Canada and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots

Thursday, November 5, 2015

11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

University of Ottawa, Fauteaux Hall, room 302.

The event is free of charge, and media and the public are invited to attend.

Q&A will follow the panel discussion

Please share the Facebook event widely

Speakers:

Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law

Mary Wareham, Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch (Arms Division)

Paul Hannon, Executive Director at Action Mines Canada

Moderated by:

Carissima Mathen, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law

        

Jurists have been pondering the “death of contract” for decades. But I think that reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. That said, we are witnessing yet another blow to the classical conception of contracts —but, this time, not at the hands of an elite set of judges and academics. Various technologies are dramatically shaping the future of contract law and challenging the continued relevance and precision of its historical doctrine. In this post, I examine various shifts in contract doctrine and a result of a steady stream of innovations that include: e-commerce, self-executing contracts, and artificial intelligence. Can computers contract without us? Read more to find out. Read more →

On August 15^th 2015, I will be speaking at the 2015 CBA Legal Conference in Calgary on “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Law Firms” with Dera J. Nevin from Proskauer Rose LLP, Noah Waisberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Kira Systems, and lawyer and blogger Omar Ha-Redeye. Other speakers at the conference include Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

My portion of the talk will focus on questions about the ethics of delegating legal tasks and legal decision-making to machines, proper and improper delegations and the relinquishment of human control that comes with automation.

You can find more information on our panel here.

“A ban on killer robots is the ethical choice”, Ottawa Citizen, July 31, 2015 C9

This opinion editorial, published by the Ottawa Citizen, describes the recent “Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers”, calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons and explains why I am a signatory. In addition to concerns about a global AI arms race, I argue that the decision to ban killer robots is the ethical choice because delegating life-or-death decisions to machines crosses a fundamental moral line. I further argue that playing Russian roulette with the lives of others can never be justified merely on the basis of efficacy. In the end, the decision whether to ban killer robots is not only a fundamental issue of human rights; it goes to the core of our humanity.

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