Nathan Wood: Autonomous and AI-Enabled Weapons, Ethics, and Law

For details please see CETE-P website

Abstract
Emerging technologies in the military domain raise a host of moral, legal, societal, and institutional challenges, with objections ranging from critics arguing that AI will create "responsibility gaps" undermining our ability to hold individuals accountable when things go wrong, to broad strategic concerns over the possible negative impact autonomous systems may have on strategic stability and the long-term prospects for peace. However, across numerous debates, autonomous and AI-enabled weapon systems are examined primarily with an eye to the systems themselves, their capabilities, and their limitations. Yet the context of use and the ways these systems will be integrated into existing military structures can be just as, if not more important than the precise technical aspects of such weapons. In this presentation I canvas a number of core ethical and legal principles in war, discussing how emerging technologies impact on our ability to adhere to these principles, and moreover developing a (massively) contextualized approach to ensuring responsible and effective use of autonomous and AI-enabled systems in war. I show that, far from the picture critics attempt to push, these types of weapons are very likely to be deployable in accordance with the ethics and laws of war, but such deployments will demand close attention to the realities of warfare and the realities of a given operational environment.