The ethics watchdog for Norway’s US$830 billion sovereign wealth fund is taking the unusual step of warning companies against developing the next generation of weapons — robots that do not require human intervention to kill.
The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which invests the income from Norway’s oil industry, is so big that it owns 1.3 percent of the world’s listed company equity. It is required by law to restrict investments in companies on ethical grounds.
It is not allowed to invest in companies that make anti-personnel mines or nuclear weapons, and the head of its independent ethics panel, Johan Andresen, said it would now also be on the lookout for firms involved in development of autonomous weapons, even though the technology is not available yet.
Autonomous weapons select and fire on targets without human intervention. Although their development is in its infancy, some robotics and artificial intelligence researchers suggest it could be just a matter of years before they could be used.
“This is a statement of fair warning, a heads-up,” Andresen said. “If you think about developing technology for recognizing cancer, that is fine, but if you are adapting it to track down a certain type of individual in a certain environment, and cooperating with others to make an autonomous weapon out of it, don’t be surprised if we take a look at you.”
No companies were under examination, said Andresen, as there were none to look at, yet.
The Council on Ethics is an independent body that makes recommendations on companies that may be in breach of the fund’s ethical guidelines. Usually, there has to be a suspicion of a breach for the council to examine it.
It is looking at corruption in the defense, telecoms and energy industries, at workers’ rights in construction, textiles and electronics manufacturing and, beginning this year, at companies responsible for excessive climate change emissions.
Physicist Stephen Hawking, Tesla Motors Inc CEO Elon Musk and Apple Inc co-founder Steve Wozniak were among signatories to a letter penned by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers in July last year calling for a ban on autonomous weapons.
“Artificial intelligence technology has reached a point where the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades,” the letter said.
In the US, the Pentagon in December last year said that it would request between US$12 billion and US$15 billion for early work on new technologies, including autonomous weapons.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
TikTok abounds with viral videos accusing prestigious brands of secretly manufacturing luxury goods in China so they can be sold at cut prices. However, while these “revelations” are spurious, behind them lurks a well-oiled machine for selling counterfeit goods that is making the most of the confusion surrounding trade tariffs. Chinese content creators who portray themselves as workers or subcontractors in the luxury goods business claim that Beijing has lifted confidentiality clauses on local subcontractors as a way to respond to the huge hike in customs duties imposed on China by US President Donald Trump. They say this Chinese decision, of which Agence
RSS