Elon Musk one of 116 experts calling on UN to ban autonomous weapons

Tesla's Elon Musk and Google's Mustafa Suleyman are among 116 AI experts who are calling on the United Nations to introduce measures to ban the development and usage of autonomous weapons.

Musk has been vocal about his belief in the need for regulation on artificial intelligence, previously going head-to-head with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg on the matter.

Founders of the group sent a letter to the UN urging the organisation to put regulations to place to prevent an arms race in the "third revolution in warfare."

In the letter, the group wrote: "Lethal autonomous weapons will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever."

RELATED STORIES

• Hyperloop One pod makes maiden journey

• Google launches AI capital project Gradient Ventures to help start-ups

• Wimbledon's 2017 video output to be served up by IBM's AI

"These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways."

"We do not have long to act. Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close."

Calls for the addition of autonomous weapons to the UN's banned list alongside chemical weapons have grown louder, with Musk one of those leading the movement.

In 2014, Musk called AI "our biggest existential threat" and warned about "scenarios like those seen in the Terminator movies."

Tweeting on August 12, the Tesla and OpenAI founder said that artificial intelligence has "vastly more risk than North Korea," alongside a picture of a poster proclaiming 'In the end, the machines will win.'