Robots fighting wars.
Science fiction?
Not anymore.
If machines, not humans, are making life and death decisions
How can wars be fought humanely and responsibly?
Humanity is confronted with a grave future — the rise of autonomous weapons.
Autonomous weapons are those that select an attack target without human intervention.
After the initial launch or activation, it's the weapon system itself that self-initiates the attack.
It's not science fiction at all, in fact it's already in use.
The world is in a new arms race.
In just 12 countries, there are over 130 military systems that can autonomously track targets.
Systems that are armed.
They include air defense systems that fire when an incoming projectile is detected,
“Loitering munitions” which hover in the sky, searching a specific area for pre-selected
categories of targets.
And sentry weapons at military borders which use cameras and thermal imaging
to ID human targets.
It’s a pretty far cry from a soldier manning a checkpoint.
Militaries are not turning to robotics and increasing autonomous robotics because they
think they're cool.
They're doing it for very good military reasons.
They can take in greater amounts of information than a human
could, make sense of it quicker than a human could,
be deployed into areas that might not
be possible for a human system,
or might be too risky, too costly.
In theory, any remote-controlled robotic weapon — in the air, on land, or at sea — could
be adapted to strike autonomously.
And even though humans do oversee the pull of the trigger now, that could change overnight.
Because autonomous killing is not a technical issue —
it’s a legal and ethical one.
We’ve been here before.
At the beginning of the last century, tanks, air warfare, and long-range missiles felt
like science fiction.
But they became all too real.
With their use came new challenges to applying the rules of war, which require warring parties
to balance military necessity with the interests of humanity.
These ideas are enshrined in international humanitarian law.
In fact, it was the International Committee of the Red Cross that pushed for the creation
and universal adoption of these rules,
starting with the very first Geneva Convention in 1864.
These rules have remained flexible enough to encompass new developments in weaponry,
staying as relevant today as ever.
But these laws were created by humans, for humans, to protect other humans.
So can a machine follow the rules of war?
Well that's really the wrong question, because humans apply the law and machines just carry
out functions.
The key issue is really that humans must keep enough control to make the legal judgements.
Machines lack human cognition, judgment, and the ability to understand context.
You can think of the parallels with how we deal with pets.
The dog is an autonomous system,
but if the dog bites someone, we ask
"who owns that dog?"
Who takes responsibility for that dog?
Did they train that dog to operate that way?
That’s why the International Committee of the Red Cross advocates that governments come
together and set limits on autonomy in weapons and ensure compliance
with international humanitarian law.
The good news is that the ICRC has done this work for over a century.
They’ve navigated landmines and cluster munitions, chemical weapons and nuclear bombs.
And they know that without human control over life and death decisions, there will be grave
consequences for civilians and combatants.
That’s a future no one wants to see.