The joint initiative was initiated by Walsh, a professor from New South Wales University in Australia. Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwanese scholars all participated in the conference, including Prof. Hua Yunsheng, Executive Vice President of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Acting Director Professor Yang Yiren, Professor Zhou Zhihua, Dean of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Nanjing University, and Professor Liu Zhaolin, Department of Entrepreneurship, Taiwan University of Political Science.
KAIST cooperates with Korean military giants
The open letter pointed out that KAIST had cooperated with the Hanwha system and established the “Defense and Artificial Intelligence Integration Research Center” a few months ago. They are very concerned about reports that the target of the center is to apply AI technology to military weapons and participate in the global automatic weapons development competition. Scholars said that at present, the United Nations is discussing how to limit the threat of automatic weapons to international security. It is regrettable that academic institutions like KAIST are trying to speed up the arms race in automatic weapons.
Scholars pointed out that once successful development of automatic weapons, it will trigger the third military revolution so that the war will proceed at an unprecedented speed and scale. It may also be used as a terrorist attack to innocent civilians as well as ethnic cleansing. “Pandora’s box is opened once It will be very difficult to shut down. Just as it was once forbidden to blind the laser, we can also simply prohibit the development of automatic weapons."
Fear of ethnic cleansing and terrorist attacks on weapons
Syndicate scholars announced that KAIST is on the verge of the day, including terminating cooperation with any of the school's academic departments, and will not visit or accept scholars from KAIST, and stop participating in all KAIST-related research projects until the president of KAIST promises to “defense and artificial intelligence”. Integrated Research Center will not develop automatic weapons.
KAIST President: Do not develop AI weapons
Shen Chengqi subsequently issued a statement in response to the joint ambassador, saying that he noted the ethical issues of AI research and agreed to promise that KAIST will not participate in any study that undermines human dignity, including automatic weapons that are not controlled by humans. The school stressed that "Defense and The Artificial Intelligence Integration Research Center will only focus on how to apply AI to military command and control systems, large-scale navigation of submarine vehicles, intelligent flight vehicle training, and object tracking systems.
Walsh was satisfied with KAIST's reply and described the success of the joint affair, but decided that he would need to discuss with other affiliated scholars before deciding whether to call the boycott. However, Walsh still has reservations about partial responses to KAIST. For example, the school has not explained. How to maintain human operations after unmanned underwater vehicles snorkeling in the deep sea.
The Hanwha system, which was developed in cooperation with KAIST, was originally a military division of South Korea’s Samsung Group. In 2014, after the reorganization of Samsung’s prince Lee Jae-Hyun, the military sector was sold to Hanwha Group, which started production of gunpowder. The Hanwha system is responsible for R&D and manufacture of radars, and electronic warfare. And combat command systems and other products. ■ Reuters / "Guardian"