They claimed that KAIST’s Research Center for the Convergence of National and Artificial Intelligence would accelerate the “global competition to develop autonomous arms” which would “search for and eliminate targets without human control.”

KAIST President Shin Sung-chul released a statement reaffirming that “KAIST does not have any intention to engage in the development of lethal autonomous weapons system and killer robots” and that the university was well-aware of the ethical concerns regarding the application of AI technology.

The university also pledged to “not conduct any research activities counter to human dignity including autonomous weapons lacking meaningful human control.”

As the boycott has been called off, the researchers who were signatories to the boycott will “once again visit and host researchers from KAIST, and collaborate on scientific projects,” KAIST said.

The boycott had been led by Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. It had come ahead of this week’s United Nations meeting in Geneva discussing the challenges posed by lethal autonomous weapons, often called “killer robots.”

The meeting set to be held Monday will consider the military applications of AI and options for addressing the humanitarian and international security challenges posed by lethal autonomous weapons systems.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)