hello and welcome to sophie and co i'm sophie shevardnadze jody williams embarked on a crusade against land mines in the early ninety's with few people behind her within several layers sort of motorists and g.a.o. had grown into a cloak spanning network landmines where international event and she was awarded a nobel peace prize now she is on a different mission and killer robots are her target she is our guest today. from spears to go from chariots to humanity stops at nothing to invent new ways to

kill. with drones already making college sister e. drill bits are on their way. this is song finite may coming to life. but the mercy of machines and what does it say to stand up and stop it before it's too late. now our guest today is jody williams political activist and a winner of the noble peace prize jodi it's so great to have you on our show so you work to get it thank you for inviting me yeah so you work to get lend lines band and that want a new a nobel peace prize now you're targeting what you call the killer robots fully autonomy's weapons tell us more about them for those who don't know what they are in simple words. sure i think when we say killer robots most people think of drones but killer robots are weapons the would make

drones look primitive at least with the drone there is a human being who looks at computer screen sees the target and pushes the buttons to fire the missiles and kill various militaries are doing research on weapons that would have no human being involved in the targeting and killing of human beings and we found that shocking and horrifying that people are really thinking it is ok to give the right to target and kill human beings to machines so this things haven't been used yet right tell me what tell me more correct. but there are many many precursors to kill what we call killer robots the u.s. for example is testing the x.

forty seven b. which is a you know a subsonic super drone as it is called the u.k. is testing the to ram this european countries under france are testing the neuro on china has just tested its own stealth drone we're not quite certain about what russia is testing but i do know that russia and now it's in twenty thirteen that they would be opening a military bro but center in two thousand and fourteen and there are prototypes from this from the stealth drones all the way downed to micro robots which are the size of a mosquito that could fly into a room and either do surveillance or fly into a room and you know inject a toxin and kill the target and it's very frightening that people think this is ok but what it still takes a human being to actually switch it on and directed one way or another it would

take the robot to be programmed but once it was set free it would proceed to make the targeting and kill decisions unless our campaign to stop killer robots is able to make certain that human beings have to be involved meaningfully in the kill decision because before we get into the whole moral side of the story i want to know more about the technicalities so are this things and controllable one stair put in action or can you actually stop them reverse a action bring them back. that we don't know yet because as you point out these are still in the prototype and testing phase robotic scientists some of whom are part of our campaign talk often about what would happen if

a squadron for example of stealth killer drones were set free and they were hacked just like computer hackers hack into you know computer systems there is no saying that they couldn't hack into a killer drone squadron and set it a mark who then is responsible for the killings by the killer robots is it the programmer of it's at the program or is it the commander somehow in charge of the squadron is it the person who programmed the robot is it the producer of the robot in international law there has to be a direct chain of command and accountability that is another part of this that makes it ethically. unsound morally reprehensible quite frankly now lend mines were banned after many people suffered will you be taken seriously

considering that there have been no victims yet we have been taken seriously which is one of the amazing things about this sophie we only launched the campaign to stop killer robots in april of this year this year being twenty thirty and with the end seven months which is now the international community is going to be taking up the question here in geneva next may i think it is in a four day long meeting on killer robots and it will be governments of the world under the umbrella of the convention on conventional weapons here in geneva who will be addressing this issue and we're hoping they will go further and we will continue a dialogue to lead to a new international instrument that would prohibit you know fully autonomous killer robots so it's not it's not something that we're being ridiculed for

anymore although you're correct when we first used the term killer robots some people said we're using scare tactics that's not true we want to guess we want to capture public attention which means you use language that makes people stop and think but immediately military started responding to us showing clearly that we are not making things up this is not science fiction and i wish it were to be quite honest with you jenny i'm just wondering have you personally had a chance to talk to people directly to people who are making this autonomy's weapons do they actually consider the dangers of what they're building. well i haven't spoken to them yet myself but i intend to here they are aware there is an increasingly robust dialogue about this especially among lawyers as you can

imagine on both sides of the argument the the anti killer robot side saying that it the international law as it stands now cannot fully deal with this new technology and the other is on the side that believe fully autonomous weapons are you know the best thing after sliced bread argue that they're a good thing and international law can deal with them and all we need is best practices. but when the united states which is the only country to have done so so far produced its military directive on drone research not drone i'm sorry killer robot research they actually listed a very long series of concerns that need to be looked at in terms of killer robots so even the u.s. military which has long considered that killer robots are inevitable and will be

part of the us military force recognizes these are very problematic and we intend to amplify that if you will but so what do you say to those who argue that autonomy systems are in our future it's an irreversible process and if government's done used them in a regulated way they wail and being used by rebel groups and non-government actors know because rebel groups and non-government actors could never produce them on their own unless high tech militaries like the united states israel south korea china russia unless those militaries and the so-called defense industries pretty. use of them rebel groups don't have the capacity what we're trying to do is a preemptive ban as was done with blinding laser weapons for example back in one

thousand nine hundred five or ninety six they were preemptively banned we need to do this with killer robots and we're not against robots we are against weaponized fully autonomous robots that have the kill decision over human beings it's quite shocking that people think that's ok. ok i get you benny preemptively i think it's a great goal but does your complain include semi-autonomous missions like drones no it's not that there there are members of our campaign that work on drones but the legal rationale for drones and for killer robots is different and we wanted to be very clear that we were preemptively dealing with a future system that is under research and development let's not imagine that there's somewhere in the far distant future they are on our immediate horizon unless we stop them dealing with drones is a is as i said

a very different legal approach to try to blend the two would make it a very difficult campaign to be quite honest and we don't believe the killer robots are inevitable nothing is inevitable except death and we intend to stop them ok well if you take apart from the killer robots i just want to know your personal take on them can the use of drones to carry out attacks be morally justified is it ok. i am personally morally and ethically offended by the use of drones in fact i was doing research for an article i was writing on the cia the us military the mercenary forces they employ and the use of drones and its illegality under many circumstances because i found them morally reprehensible and i think that the fact that these weapons can fly semi autonomous

lead for seven thousand miles to you know the locations where unfortunately my military and the cia are attacking people in countries with which we are not at war. it to me is simply horrifying and as many you know already argue it's a violation of international law and it's assassination i do not support assassination by my government period judy we're going to take a short break now but when will they are back we're going to talk a little bit more about dragons and who deserves a noble peace prize well the backroads jody williams x. instead noble peace prize winner stay with us folks.

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they were going to do that you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy back numbers. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our proximity we've been hijacked right handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once told my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world if we go beyond identifying problems. rational debate and real discussion critical issues things that are ready to join the movement then welcome to it.

and we're back with jody williams a noble peace prize winner run a political activist so we're talking about drones right before the break you know a break where you know many would argue that sophisticated weapons like drones despite all its disadvantages are still better than humans at locating targets plus the life of the pilot is safe you know others argue that such weapons that remove a human being from actual military action make it easier for a country to go to war. i believe firmly that too many countries already find it easy to go to war we do not need weapons systems that make it easier for one

country to kill people in another without having to suffer the consequences of their military actions there has been a young former drone pilot who had spoken publicly about what happened to him as a drone pilot and he was talking about people you know think that it isn't traumatic and he said that it is watched so closely watching people were run to because you can hear the coming of a drone it traumatizes entire you know villages and populations and watching people run to try to escape them and then be blown to smithereens as we say in english he said it's quite horrifying however if he were on the ground you know maybe he wouldn't make the same decision. might i worry mostly about my country because we're the country that uses drones primarily and we attack targets in

yemen somalia we've attacked in libya sudan i heard that there might have been an attack in indonesia we are not at war with those countries what right do we have to assassinate people if we had to send our military in it would be a completely different story another ethical issue about drone so is that they give no quarter which is an important aspect of military engagement giving no quarter means that the enemy has no possibility of surrender. you know when they target a person and decide to blast him with the hellfire missiles they have no way to surrender they are just blown up. that is morally and ethically bankrupt and you know many of us are clued ingo as active duty military that it is causing

a huge backlash against the us and it's inspiring more so-called terrorists to take up you know about will against the united states of america so i mean your life has been this selfless mission all along and you won and noble peace prize and you sure as hell deserve it and many more if you ask me but do you generally believe that those people who get nobel peace prizes usually always deserve it not always certainly not. i have big issues with people in politics or political positions. where they can engage in war receiving a peace prize i think that's a little bit crazy so i don't think i've gotten the glazers the nobel peace prize. i have said it publicly many times so i won't shy from saying it now if the first

start i think it is the fault of the nobel committee at that time for selecting him . nobels mr nobel's will is very clear about the terms that should be followed in selecting a recipient of the peace prize and expressions of future possibilities as mr obama was talking about in terms of nuclear disarmament expressions of the future are not terms of the will. so i think the nobel committee itself made an egregious error and when mr obama came out of the white house and said that he knew he did not deserve the peace prize i was proud of him for that moment and i wish he had continued to say therefore i cannot accept it so. there you go and i don't think henry kissinger ever deserved it but who do you believe deserves a peace prize that hasn't already received it oh my god i could list many. you know

i happen to think that the people who wage war don't deserve the peace prize i happen to believe that the people on the ground fighting a good and i don't mean militarily fighting struggling to keep communities alive struggling to promote peaceful solutions in the context of war they are the ones who deserve the peace prize and i will be quite honest i have nominated attorney general of guatemala two times now for the nobel peace prize her name is cloudy a pos she is from guatemala under her. the former dictator of guatemala was tried and convicted of crimes against humanity war crimes genocide when he was a president and killing my and the indians in the so-called civil war in the one

nine hundred eighty s. in water mala i think she deserves the peace prize she is challenging immunity and impunity which are two of the things that cause dictators and heads of state to believe that they can do whatever they want because nothing will happen to them you know if we can really attack impunity through the international criminal court for example through domestic courts like us as done in guatemala we will make a huge leap forward in dealing with war criminals and perhaps convincing future possible war criminals that they should not commit war crimes i think she is very deserving you see super confident in every step you make is that there is no stopping us thank god for that you have things in klia been assaulted and attacked because of your activism and you're still not scared i mean how do you put the fear

aside like what keeps you go weighing every morning when you get. or you know i was thinking about this the other day. because i was at a meeting of women parliamentarians and talking about women's leadership whether it's in parliament so or in companies or in activism and i was thinking about the six women who are part of the nobel women's initiative and every one of us is fearless and fierce in our belief that we can make the world a better place we are fearless and fierce in bright his indignation at injustice i mean that's what makes me move when i feel in my in my heart you know fire in my heart about a situation i can't not do something you know what i mean i have and i don't mean back from so that's what led me to you know start pushing groups

to create a campaign to stop killer robots when i learned about them i was so freaked out i was terrified totally honestly i was terrified and then i knew i had to do something to try to address this issue publicly we deserve to have global conversation about how wars are conducted in our names. i feel fierce about making sure this doesn't happen it is not inevitable what we have time just for one last question you say that worry without real action is a waste of time but what if you feel healthier i mean how can an ordinary person stop governments from doing whatever they're doing my dear i'm an extremely ordinary person i come from a village of one thousand two hundred people in the teeny state of vermont need

there my mother nor my father finished high school. and yet they encouraged me to be what i wanted to be in the world and. i went out and the first thing i did was volunteer in an organization working on the inside of the door you know if there's nothing magic about it i recently wrote a memoir of grassroots activism in which i talk about that i talk about my very you know me. poor you know family life we were rich with love and support but we didn't have money i write about the fact that i was a confused college kid like so many you know i write about the fact that i made mistakes in life and yet i never very you know veered from my belief that we all have the capacity to contribute to a better world you don't have to be a full time activist like i am i somehow have the privilege of finding this path in

my own life but i try to imagine if everybody in the world who really wanted a better world for us all even people they don't like if everybody just volunteered a few hours a month on whatever issues they feel passion about it doesn't have to be mine it doesn't have to be killer robots it doesn't have to be weapons it doesn't have to be i work on climate change as well but anything that makes for a better community if you volunteer. then you're empowering yourself to use your we each have power and we either choose to use it or not and i chose to use it and i will continue to use it until i die because i believe we all have responsibility as well as rights and i'm exercising mine forever. jody thank

you so much for this wonderful interview i think you're incredible and you inspire even the most and passionate of us so keep on go we always knew thanks for being with us today julie and political activist and nobel peace prize winner that's all we have today folks and i'll see you next patient up so. what they're trying to do now is still another myth to us which is that one group of slightly less red a cool fundamentalists are now attacking the audio. and taking care of them

who is the major supporter of these groups i mean they have to get money and arms and training from somewhere and the country that's been named so far in this program is saudi arabia what is their role in all this i think it's a little bit. this is the position of three other people i don't see flies the fact that saudi arabia for its own reasons with the american bickering but with always in this. certain elements we've been in this position because this would be a really big government preferring to try to broker. the rise ok take it over the future when the those groups operate together so be aware that it's quite clear. previously peacekeepers were primarily concerned with monitoring peace deals you know post conflict environment nowadays they're increasingly asked to operate in a highly. let's go back to while billie still angel to stay.

motionless what these people have closed over almost twenty years four million people killed millions of displaced and refugees tens of thousands of women raped. children recruited those soldiers were all slaves no please. please little. little limitless.

little. little. little please please please please please please please. i live.

top diplomats from the united states and russia meet in a bid to salvage syrian peace talks even as rebel forces turn their fire on each other in an unprecedented turf war. pulling no punches to claw back some control over its legal system as a european court judges the right to criminals to life without parole. and pay up. low income families bear the brunt of washington's overspending as automatic budget cuts forced them out of their homes by the million.