Elon Musk leads tech executives calling for killer robot ban

Tesla founder Elon Musk was among a raft of technology experts to call on the United Nations to ban the development of killer robots.

In an open letter signed by 116 robotics and artificial intelligence specialists to the UN, the group described the danger of the use of such automated weapons and robots.

The UN recently began considering the effect an increased development of drones, tanks and automated machine guns would have on global warfare.

"Lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare," the letter says.

"Once developed, they will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend. These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways."

“Lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare,”

Among the other signatories was Mustafa Suleyman, the founder of British AI firm DeepMind, which was acquired by Google for $500m in 2014.

Musk has previously warned against the dangers of using artificial intelligence, despite its benefits.

The entrepreneur tweeted earlier this month that the technology was more dangerous to global safety than that of the threat posed by Kim Jong-un’s North Korea regime.

"If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea," Musk said.