UN urged to ban 'killer robots' before they can be developed

Fully autonomous weapons should be banned by international treaty, says a report by Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School

Fully autonomous weapons, already denounced as "killer robots", should be banned by international treaty before they can be developed, a new report urges the United Nations .

Under existing laws, computer programmers, manufacturers and military commanders would all escape liability for deaths caused by such machines, according to the study published on Thursday by Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School.