Makers of AK-47 assault rifle develops killer AI machines

A fully automated combat module is planned to be demonstrated at the Army-2017 forum

Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov recently announced that it has developed a fully automated combat module that will use artificial intelligence to identify targets, learn and make decisions on its own.

Kalashnikov is famous for producing the AK-74 assault rifle. Speaking to Russian state-run news agency Tass, communications director of Kalashnikov Group Sofiya Ivanova said, "In the imminent future, the Group will unveil a range of products based on neural networks. A fully automated combat module featuring this technology is planned to be demonstrated at the Army-2017 forum."



The company released images of one of the combat robots with Kalashnikov’s PK series of machine guns mounted atop.



However, it is still unclear the neural network-based combat modules will enter production or whether any customers are already interested in deploying them.

Neural networks are computing systems inspired by biological neural networks such as brain and are designed to learn from past inputs, meaning they get smarter the more information they consume.



So far, their deployment in military applications has been limited to areas like target recognition, infrastructure mapping, search-and-rescue missions, and aid delivery as AI and robotics researchers have been sceptical about the full-fledged use of autonomous artificial intelligence systems in warfare.

Earlier in 2015, a group of more than 1,000 scientists, researchers, and business leaders — including Professor Stephen Hawking and SpaceX founder Elon Musk — signed an open letter warning of the perils of artificially intelligent weapons. “If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow,” the letter stated.

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