Killer robotsPressure mounts to keep human control over killer robots
Fully autonomous weapons would go a step beyond existing remote-controlled drones as they would be able to select and engage targets without human intervention. Although these weapons do not exist yet, the rapid movement of technology from human “in-the-loop” weapons systems toward “out-of-the-loop” systems is attracting international attention and concern. Countries should retain meaningful human control over weapons systems and ban fully autonomous weapons, also known as “killer robots,” Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic said in a new report. The concept of meaningful human control will be a centerpiece of deliberations at a week-long multilateral meeting on the weapons, opening 11 April 2016, at the United Nations in Geneva.
Countries should retain meaningful human control over weapons systems and ban fully autonomous weapons, also known as “killer robots,” Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic said in a report issued yesterday. The concept of meaningful human control will be a centerpiece of deliberations at a week-long multilateral meeting on the weapons, opening 11 April 2016, at the United Nations in Geneva.
The 16-page report, Killer Robots and the Concept of Meaningful Human Control, discusses the moral and legal importance of control and shows countries’ growing recognition of the need for humans to remain in charge of the critical functions of selecting and firing on targets.
“Machines have long served as instruments of war, but historically humans have directed how they are used,” said Bonnie Docherty, senior arms division researcher at Human Rights Watch and the report’s lead author. “Now, there is a real threat that humans would relinquish their control and delegate life-and-death decisions to machines.”
HRW says that fully autonomous weapons would go a step beyond existing remote-controlled drones as they would be able to select and engage targets without human intervention. Although these weapons do not exist yet, the rapid movement of technology from human “in-the-loop” weapons systems toward “out-of-the-loop” systems is attracting international attention and concern.
Human Rights Watch and the Harvard program also examined the rules requiring control in various areas of international law, including disarmament, and how they could provide insight into the use of the term in the context of autonomous weapons. Bans on mines, biological weapons, and chemical weapons show the value disarmament law has placed on control of weapons. A requirement for meaningful human control over lethal force would in effect prohibit the use of fully autonomous weapons and thus achieve a preemptive ban on fully autonomous weapons, the organizations said.
The report will be distributed at the third international meeting on lethal autonomous weapons systems at the UN in Geneva from 11 to 15 April. Many of the 122 countries that have joined the Convention on Conventional Weapons are expected to attend this meeting of experts on the subject, which Germany is chairing. The meeting continues deliberations on the matter held in April 2015 and May 2014.
