ABSTRACT
The European Parliament has called for a moratorium or ban of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). Robotics in warfare will be a major change, comparable to the introduction of planes or perhaps even nuclear weapons. One of the questions is whether the use of robotics, especially highly autonomous robotics, constitutes just one major step in the arms race or a step that introduces qualitatively new ethical concerns. This chapter provides a general recommendation on the issue of whether killer robots should be banned. Killer robots are attractive to the military and to political funding for a number of reasons: they reduce the risk to one's own soldiers, reducing the human and political costs of war. Killer robots, like any weapon in war, must comply with the regulations of International Humanitarian Law in the Geneva Convention.
