Over 70 percent of people across 10 European countries believe that their governments should work to draft an international treaty banning lethal autonomous weapons systems, also known as killer robots, a fresh survey by the YouGov pollster showed on Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th November, 2019) Over 70 percent of people across 10 European countries believe that their governments should work to draft an international treaty banning lethal autonomous weapons systems, also known as killer robots, a fresh survey by the YouGov pollster showed on Wednesday.The survey, commissioned by watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW), was released ahead of the upcoming annual meeting of parties to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, which started earlier in the day in Geneva and will run until Friday. On the last day of the meeting, participants will discuss ways to address threats posed by robot killers.
"Seventy-three percent of survey respondents said they favor their country working for an international ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Thirteen percent did not, while 14 percent said they were not sure or preferred not to answer. The strongest support was in Ireland (81 percent), the Netherlands (80 percent), Hungary (78 percent), and Spain (77 percent) followed by Italy (75 percent), Norway (72 percent), Switzerland (72 percent), Belgium (71 percent), and Germany (69 percent)," the poll said, as cited by HRW.
The 10th country, Finland, saw support for the killer robots ban stand at 60 percent, the lowest of the group. At the same time, 28 percent of Finnish nationals were unable to give a definitive answer to the question.
The survey revealed that women generally showed more support for ban 74 percent of all women polled were in favor of the measure compared to 71 percent of men who felt the same.
The poll was conducted among 2,047 adults in Ireland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland and Germany in October. The governments of all these countries have all formally agreed that the use of robot killers needs to be limited, but currently none are pursuing to enshrine this in international law.
