More than 50 top Artificial Intelligence researchers on Wednesday announced a boycott of South Korea's top university, after it opened what they called an AI weapons lab with one of South Korea's largest companies.

The researchers, based in 30 countries, said they would refrain from visiting the university (known as KAIST) hosting visitors or cooperating with its research programs.

The boycott called for a pledge to refrain from developing AI weapons without "meaningful human control".

That sure sounds a lot like Skynet...

That's the worry of the researchers who signed the letter announcing the boycott.

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The ominous letter warned:

"If developed, autonomous weapons will ... permit war to be fought faster and at a scale greater than ever before. They will have the potential to be weapons of terror."

It went on to cite effective bans on previous arms technologies and urged KAIST ban any work on lethal autonomous weapons, and to refrain from AI uses that would harm human lives.

The letter was released ahead of next Monday's meeting in Geneva by 123 UN member countries on the challenges posed by lethal autonomous weapons, which critics describe as "killer robots".

KAIST responded to the boycott very quickly

University president Sung-Chul Shin hit back against the boycott, saying the lab had "no intention to engage in development of lethal autonomous weapons systems and killer robots."

He said the university was "significantly aware" of ethical concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence.

"I reaffirm once again that KAIST will not conduct any research activities counter to human dignity including autonomous weapons lacking meaningful human control," he said.

The university said the new Research Centre for the Convergence of National Defence and Artificial Intelligence would focus on using AI for:

Command and control systems

Command and control systems Navigation for large unmanned undersea vehicles

Navigation for large unmanned undersea vehicles Smart aircraft training and tracking

Smart aircraft training and tracking The recognition of objects

But the boycotters aren't convinced, yet

Toby Walsh, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney who organised the boycott, said the university's quick response was a success, but he needed to speak with all those who signed the letter before calling off the boycott.

"KAIST has made two significant concessions: not to develop autonomous weapons and to ensure meaningful human control," he said.

Mr Walsh said it remained unclear how one could establish meaningful human control of an unmanned submarine — one of the launch projects — when it was under the sea and unable to communicate.

He said there were many potential good uses of robotics and Artificial Intelligence in the military, including removing humans from dangerous task such as clearing minefields.

"But we should not hand over the decision of who lives or dies to a machine. This crosses a clear moral line," he said.

"We should not let robots decide who lives and who dies."

Reuters