ASHLEY HALL: The proliferation of US drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan has raised questions about the very foundations of the rules of war. And it doesn't stop with the US. Unmanned robotic weapons systems with varying degrees of autonomy are already being tested and used by Britain and Israel as well.
Human rights activists, scientists and military experts fear these robots are being developed in the absence of any ethical or legal considerations. But tonight, for the first time, countries will debate the ethics of these so-called killer robots at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Rebecca Armitage reports.
(Excerpts from movies: 'Terminator', 'Robocop' and 'I, Robot')
REBECCA ARMITAGE: For years, science fiction movies have featured murderous robots that hunt and kill human beings. But with thousands of unmanned American drones patrolling the skies, and armed sentry robots guarding the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea, some are wondering if fiction is becoming reality.
Dr Christian Enemark is from the Australian National University.
CHRISTIAN ENEMARK: Although currently drones are controlled remotely by human beings, there is interest on the part of the US military in coming up with drone technology where a drone can keep on functioning after it has lost communication with its ground-based controller.
REBECCA ARMITAGE: And it's that fear of what robots could do that's prompted the South African lawyer, Professor Christof Heyns to submit a report to the UN Human Rights Council, calling for a global ban on autonomous robots. He's worried about a robot that could select and kill targets without a human being directly issuing a command.
Rob Sparrow from Monash University is a professor of philosophy and one of the founding members of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. He says robots would be unable to distinguish legal from illegal orders, and couldn't be held responsible for war crimes.
ROB SPARROW: It's hard to try the robot, they're not the fault for things that we can send to prison. You might try to hold the commanding officer responsible, and I suspect that's the way it will go, to say, 'well you launched this weapon, so you're responsible for the decisions it made'. But that may seem unfair.
REBECCA ARMITAGE: But proponents of autonomous weapons say they offer the possibility of war without atrocities. After all, robots don't tire, and unless specifically programmed, they don't act out of revenge, panic, anger or fear.
Sam Roggeveen is from the Lowy Institute.
SAM ROGGEVEEN: Robots with their programming and their cold calculation are not hindered, are not clouded in their judgements by their passions and by their emotions. And that also means potentially that you've got fewer atrocities taking place.
REBECCA ARMITAGE: But Professor Sparrow says it's precisely that lack of human emotion that makes robots so dangerous.
ROB SPARROW: I think that emotions are an important part of what it means to respect other human beings and I'm not convinced that a machine that makes a cold calculation and says, 'right, I'm going to kill these people' is necessarily respecting human life in the way that we want.
REBECCA ARMITAGE: Defence expert David Olney says the development of killer robots is only a matter of time. The US, Britain, Israel, and Japan all have autonomous weapons programs. But he says it remains to be seen whether governments would be willing to deploy them on the battlefield.
DAVID OLNEY: I think within a decade there would be technology capable, but I think the ethical dilemma this causes of humans surrendering control over life and death will stop the technology from being put into practice for decades.
This doesn't mean if the technology falls into the hands of non-state actors that a non-state actor might not use the technology.
ASHLEY HALL: David Olney, from the University of Adelaide, ending Rebecca Armitage's report.