The Campaign To Stop Killer Robots

The threat of fully autonomous weapons

The problem

Fully autonomous weapons would decide who lives and dies, without further human intervention, which crosses a moral threshold. As machines, they would lack the inherently human characteristics such as compassion that are necessary to make complex ethical choices.

The US, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and the UK are developing weapons systems with significant autonomy in the critical functions of selecting and attacking targets. If left unchecked the world could enter a destabilizing robotic arms race.

Replacing troops with machines could make the decision to go to war easier and shift the burden of conflict even further on to civilians. Fully autonomous weapons would make tragic mistakes with unanticipated consequences that could inflame tensions.

Fully autonomous weapons would lack the human judgment necessary to evaluate the proportionality of an attack, distinguish civilian from combatant, and abide by other core principles of the laws of war. History shows their use would not be limited to certain circumstances.

It’s unclear who, if anyone, could be held responsible for unlawful acts caused by a fully autonomous weapon: the programmer, manufacturer, commander, and machine itself. This accountability gap would make it is difficult to ensure justice, especially for victims.

Fully autonomous weapons could be used in other circumstances outside of armed conflict, such as in border control and policing. They could be used to suppress protest and prop-up regimes. Force intended as non-lethal could still cause many deaths.

The solution

The development, production and use of
fully autonomous weapons must be banned.

Retain meaningful human control over targeting and attack decisions by prohibiting development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons. Legislate the ban through national laws and by international treaty.

All countries should articulate their views on the concerns raised by fully autonomous weapons and commit to create a new ban treaty to establish the principle of meaningful human control over the use of force.

All technology companies and organizations as well as individuals working to develop artificial intelligence and robotics should pledge to never contribute to the development of fully autonomous weapons.

FAQ

What are fully autonomous weapons?

Fully autonomous weapons— also known as lethal autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots— are weapons systems that would select and engage targets on the basis of sensor inputs, that is, systems where the object to be attacked is determined by sensor processing, not by humans. Killer robots do most likely not yet exist, but there are precursor weapons systems that clearly show the trend of increasing autonomy.

Technology is developing rapidly and there is an urgent need for diplomacy to keep pace. Fully autonomous weapons raise many legal, ethical, technical, and security concerns. They would cross the threshold of acceptability and should be prevented and prohibited through new international law.

What does the Campaign want to do about killer robots?

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots urges states to launch negotiations on an international treaty to retain meaningful human control over targeting and attack decisions by prohibiting the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons. This ban treaty should be enforced via national laws.

All countries must commit to create a new ban treaty to establish the principle of meaningful human control over the use of force. All technology companies and organizations, as well as individuals working to develop artificial intelligence and robotics, should pledge never to contribute to the development of fully autonomous weapons.

What would a treaty banning killer robots look like?

A new treaty should combine prohibitions and positive obligations to ban fully autonomous weapons and retain meaningful human control over the use of force. While specific language and content would have to be worked out during multilateral discussions and treaty negotiations, the treaty should contain three types of core obligations:

A general obligation to maintain meaningful human control over the use of force;

A general obligation to maintain meaningful human control over the use of force;
Prohibitions on weapons systems that select and engage targets and by their nature pose fundamental moral or legal problems; and
Specific positive obligations to help ensure that meaningful human control is maintained in the use of all other systems that select and engage targets.

Could a new treaty really stop killer robots? How would a ban be enforced?

Since 2014, more than 90 countries have participated in diplomatic talks on fully autonomous weapons at the United Nations. A majority of those states now see a need for a new treaty to prohibit or restrict such weapons and retain meaningful human control over the use of force. A small group of military powers, most notably Russia and the United States, are opposed to any effort to regulate such weapons systems.

The diplomatic talks are an exercise in knowledge-building and transparency. The negotiation of a new treaty is the optimal multilateral response to the threat that killer robots pose to humanity. Political declarations, principles, codes of conduct and other measures that fall short of new international law are completely insufficient to prevent the humanitarian harm that fully autonomous weapons would cause.

Measures that fall short of new international law would have little impact and could serve to legitimize fully autonomous weapons. States do not have the funds or time to waste negotiating weak measures that will likely be ignored. The existing laws of war were written for humans, not machines, and must be strengthened to ensure accountability and to future-proof international law. A new treaty would establish a powerful norm, stigmatizing the removal of meaningful human control from the use of force. This would drive compliance even by countries and actors that do not initially sign the treaty.

Would fully autonomous weapons be more precise and thereby save lives?

Supporters of fully autonomous weapons argue that they will bring increased speed and efficiency to the battlefield, that they would be able to operate in environments with insecure communications, and that they could save lives by decreasing the need for human soldiers, increasing accuracy in targeting, and acting as a deterrent. But similar arguments were made for other indiscriminate weapons in the past, like landmines, cluster munitions, and nuclear weapons. Those weapons claimed hundreds of thousands of victims before being banned by humanitarian disarmament treaties.

Thousands of tech experts and hundreds of companies working in the tech sector have raised concerns that fully autonomous weapons would be unpredictable and unreliable, vulnerable to hacking or spoofing, and unable to make the complex decisions required to adhere to IHL norms of distinction, proportionality, and necessity. By reacting with their environment in unexpected ways, they would increase risks to soldiers and civilians alike. Improved precision can be achieved without removing meaningful human control from the use of force. The potential advantages of fully autonomous weapons are far outweighed by the serious challenges they pose to international law and security.

What do killer robots have to do with gender and feminism?

Gender norms and patriarchal power structures affect the way we view, use, and engage with weapons, war, and violence. As a whole, applying a gender-lens and feminist approach to disarmament will result in stronger policy and better humanitarian protections, especially for women and marginalized groups.

Fully autonomous weapons could contribute to or exacerbate notions of militarized masculinity, be used to commit acts of gender-based violence or increase inequality as a result of algorithmic bias or target profiling. A treaty banning fully autonomous weapons would support feminist foreign policy goals by focusing on human security and preventing militarisation of emerging technology and technological advancements. Read more on gender and killer robots.

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Publications

Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW): Commentary (5 June).
Global Campaign Meeting, Buenos Aires, Argentina: Senate proclamation (26 February), Country Views/Ban List (11 March).
Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons, a paper by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots proposing key elements of a legally binding instrument on fully autonomous weapons (also available in French, Spanish, and Portuguese). A Frequently Asked Questions - Treaty Elements paper expands on the Campaign's position and addresses questions raised by the proposal.
CCW annual Meeting of High Contracting Parties, 13-15 November: Side Event Flyer, Statement (14 November), Report on Activities.
74th UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, 21 October 2019: Campaign to Stop Killer Robots event flyer.

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