Killer robots and the future of war

Better late than never. Governments around the world are taking steps to tackle the risks of allowing the development and spread of killer robots, technically known as Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS).

LAWS differ from the vast array of weapons in today’s arsenals – from intercontinental ballistic missiles to the drones used to devastating effect by Russia and Ukraine – because they can make decisions on what or whom to strike, who lives and who dies, without human intervention.

Artificial intelligence, facial recognition and millions of lines of codes will take the place of human operators. It is a concept in sharp contrast to the way the United States used Predator drones in Afghanistan and Iraq. They were flown by pilots sitting in front of television screens in cubicles at the Creech Air Force base in Nevada, 8,000 miles from the target areas.

The human operators were “on the loop,” the military jargon for constant control. LAWS would operate on the principle of “human out of the loop.”

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The United States, the world’s biggest maker and exporter of weapons, has no LAWS in its arsenal, according to the Pentagon. But it does have a definition: “weapons systems that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator.”

The pros and cons of killer robots have been debated in military academies and among arms control experts for almost two decades but the topic won little public attention and scant news coverage despite the efforts of advocacy groups such as stopkillerrobots.org and humanrightswatch.org.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been outspoken on the subject: “Autonomous machines with the power and discretion to select targets and take lives without human involvement are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be prohibited by international law,” he has said.

Such statements produced few headlines. One reason: Unlike the years-long campaign that led to the 1997 treaty banning anti-personnel mines, the anti-LAWS movement has lacked celebrity backers. The mine ban’s vocal supporters included the late Princess Diana and the actress Angelina Jolie.

There are signs now that a movement to ban or at least regulate killer robots is finally getting traction. Last October, the topic was formally raised at the UN General Assembly for the first time when 70 states agreed on a resolution calling for internationally agreed rules and limits on autonomous weapons systems.

A resolution by 70 countries falls far short of the two-thirds majority required in the General Assembly to stir the Security Council, the UN’s supreme decision-making body, into action.

But the issue will be raised again next month at a global summit, the first of its kind, hosted by the Dutch government, to discuss Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain. According to the Netherlands government, the meeting was prompted by the need to give the topic “a higher place on the international agenda.” Dubbed REAIM 2023, the summit is scheduled for February 15 and 16 at The Hague.

There is no full list of participants yet. The government says the summit will be a platform for governments, industry, civil society, academia and think tanks to forge a common understanding of the opportunities, dilemmas and vulnerabilities associated with military AI.

The 70 countries that signed the General Assembly statement included the US, Britain, Sweden, Norway, Australia, Belgium, and Germany – all countries with the capacity to produce LAWS.

No country has yet deployed LAWS in combat, according to military experts. But for proponents of using them, the logic appears obvious. If a country can fight wars with great efficiency, accurately pick out opponents from thousands of feet in the sky without the need for soldiers on the battlefield, why not?

The main argument by opponents is that the threshold for states going to war would be lowered by autonomous weapons. As an analysis in the Harvard Political Review put it, “many philosophers, political scientists and governments have expressed the concern that militaries will resort to conflicts more often if they do not need to rely on soldiers.”

One concern often expressed by experts in discussions on the future of war is that technology is running ahead of deliberations of ethical and legal questions.

Many of those have no convincing answers. Such as, can you programme the Laws of War and the Rules of Engagement into an autonomous weapon? Or, if something goes wrong, resulting in the death of civilians, who will be held responsible? The robot’s manufacturer? The designers? Software programmers? The commanding officer in whose unit the weapon operates? Or the political leader who gave the green light for deploying LAWS in the first place?

The forthcoming summit in The Hague so far has no catchy slogan. Here’s my suggestion: We need laws about LAWS.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

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