Autonomous Weapon Systems: Why a Ban (Still) Won't Work and How the Laws of War Can
Over at TNR's Security States, Matt and I have a new piece about international calls to ban autonomous weapon systems. It begins like this:
What if armed drones were not just piloted remotely by humans in far-away bunkers, but they were programmed under certain circumstances to select and fire at some targets entirely on their own? This may sound like science fiction, and deployment of such systems is, indeed, far off.
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Over at TNR's Security States, Matt and I have a new piece about international calls to ban autonomous weapon systems. It begins like this:
What if armed drones were not just piloted remotely by humans in far-away bunkers, but they were programmed under certain circumstances to select and fire at some targets entirely on their own? This may sound like science fiction, and deployment of such systems is, indeed, far off. But research programs, policy decisions, and legal debates are taking place now that could radically affect the future development and use of autonomous weapon systems. To many human rights NGOs, joined this week by a new international coalition of computing scientists, the solution is to preemptively ban the development and use of autonomous weapon systems (which a recent U.S. Defense Department directive on the topic defines as one “that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator”). While a preemptive ban may seem like the safest path, it is unnecessary and dangerous.The Security States essay develops points made in our Hoover policy paper, Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapon Systems: Why a Ban Won't Work and How the Laws of War Can.
Kenneth Anderson is a professor at Washington College of Law, American University; a visiting fellow of the Hoover Institution; and a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution. He writes on international law, the laws of war, weapons and technology, and national security; his most recent book, with Benjamin Wittes, is "Speaking the Law: The Obama Administration's Addresses on National Security Law."
Matthew Waxman is a law professor at Columbia Law School, where he chairs the National Security Law Program. He also previously co-chaired the Cybersecurity Center at Columbia University's Data Science Institute, and he is Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served in senior policy positions at the State Department, Defense Department, and National Security Council. After graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.
