The hypocrisy of the pacifist academics is thick. KAIST is the premier engineering school in South Korea, the country that borders one of the most insane and militaristic nations in the world-North Korea.
It's laughable to read their arguments. They should stick to robotics and not military theory.
South Korea has been a defense-focused militarized nation since the Korean War, because North Korea had invaded the South and conducted numerous raids and assaults since then. The US is not bordered with North Korea, the UK is not bordered with North Korea, France is not bordered with North Korea; so this going up in arms about a South Korean University working with a defense manufacturer is nonsense. If anything, its the University's civic duty to be developing military weapons.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/4/17196818/ai-boycot-killer-robots-kaist-university-hanwha
"The boycott was organized by Professor Toby Walsh of the University of New South Wales, who warned in a press statement that the race to build autonomous weapons had already begun. “We can see prototypes of autonomous weapons under development today by many nations including the US, China, Russia, and the UK,” said Walsh. “We are locked into an arms race that no one wants to happen. KAIST’s actions will only accelerate this arms race. We cannot tolerate this.”"
Nonsense. South Korea is bordered with North Korea. It has and always will be developing and refining military technology and strategy until North Korea ceases their provocations.
"“Developing autonomous weapons would make the security situation on the Korean peninsula worse, not better,” he said. “If these weapons get made anywhere, eventually they would certainly turn up in North Korea and they would have no qualms about using them against the South.”"
North Korea can receive and develop their own technology. This naive sense that North Korea wouldn't be able to make their own autonomous weapons if the South don't is not only stupid, but dangerous. Because wars don't happen for the heck of it, they happen because one side thinks they have a significant advantage over the other and could benefit in the long-run.
South Korea has to evolve its military with the times to the point where it can assume to inflict a 60% casualty ratio to be an effective deterrence.
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