April 07, 2016
Autonomous Weapons and Human Control
Nations from around the world met at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss autonomous weapons, potential future weapons that would select and engage targets on their own. Ensuring “meaningful human control” over future weapons has been a topic of much debate, with some human rights activists advocating for a preemptive ban. Increasing autonomy in weapons raises the question of how much human involvement is required in lethal attacks.
In this brief, Scharre and Sayler explain how autonomy is already used in many weapons today and how future fully autonomous weapons would be different. Autonomous weapons would be programmed by humans and launched by a human. Once launched, however, the weapon would have the freedom to select its own targets over a wide area according to preprogramed parameters, raising new legal, ethical, and safety questions.
The report is available online.
Authors
-
Paul Scharre
Vice President and Director of Studies
Paul Scharre is the Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security. He is the award-winning author of Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and th...
-
Kelley Sayler
Former Fellow, Defense Strategies and Assessments Program
Kelley Sayler is a former Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she worked with the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program and the Future of Warfa...
More from CNAS
-
Are ‘killer robots’ the future of warfare?
Podcast
Paul Scharre joins host Suzanna Kianpour to discuss the technology, fears and even potential advantages of developing autonomous weapons. Listen to the full conversation from...
By Paul Scharre
-
The Militarization of Artificial Intelligence
Commentary
Militaries are racing to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) with the aim of gaining military advantage over competitors. And yet, there is little understanding of AI’s long-te...
By Paul Scharre
-
Are AI-Powered Killer Robots Inevitable?
Commentary
In war, speed kills. The soldier who is a split second quicker on the draw may walk away from a firefight unscathed; the ship that sinks an enemy vessel first may spare i...
By Paul Scharre
-
The Iranian Missile Strike Did Far More Damage Than Trump Admits
Commentary
Over 100 American soldiers have been treated for traumatic brain injuries following Iran’s missile strike on Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq. The strike came in retaliation f...
By Loren DeJonge Schulman & Paul Scharre
