April 18, 2018
China’s Strategic Ambiguity and Shifting Approach to Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems
On April 13, China’s delegation to United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapons systemsannounced the “desire to negotiate and conclude” a new protocol for the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons “to ban the use of fully autonomous lethal weapons systems.” According to the aptly named Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the delegation “stressed that [the ban] is limited to use only.” The same day, the Chinese air force released details on an upcoming challenge intended to evaluate advances in fully autonomous swarms of drones, which will also explore new concepts for future intelligent-swarm combat.
The juxtaposition of these announcements illustrates China’s apparent diplomatic commitment to limit the use of “fully autonomous lethal weapons systems” is unlikely to stop Beijing from building its own.
Read the full article at Lawfare
More from CNAS
-
China’s Military Biotech Frontier: CRISPR, Military-Civil Fusion, and the New Revolution in Military Affairs
Commentary
China’s national strategy of military-civil fusion (军民融合, junmin ronghe) has highlighted biology as a priority. It is hardly surprising that the People’s Republic of China (PR...
By Elsa B. Kania & Wilson VornDick
-
ChinaEconTalk, Live from Washington, D.C.
Podcast
ChinaEconTalk is live from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., with Martijn Rasser, a senior fellow in the Technology and National Security Pro...
By Martijn Rasser
-
Kara Frederick on the rise of robocalls
Video
Kara Frederick joins America's News Headquarters to talk about how robocalls take advantage of people. View the full conversation on Fox News....
By Kara Frederick
-
When your data is held hostage
Podcast
Technology and security expert Kara Frederick explains how and why U.S. local governments and electoral rolls are vulnerable to ransomware and what can be done about it. List...
By Kara Frederick
