AI military weapons should be ban

Columns:

Killer Robots: Protectors of Human Rights? Why a ban on the development of lethal autonomous weapons is premature

“States should adopt an international, legally binding instrument that prohibits the develop- ment, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons,” declared Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) in an April statement. The two groups issued a report titled “Killer Robots and the Concept of Meaningful Human Control,” as experts in weapons and international human rights were meeting in Geneva to consider what should be done about lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). It was the third such meeting, conducted under the auspices of the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

What is a lethal autonomous weapons system? Depends on who you ask, but the U.S.

weapon system that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further interven- tion by a human operator.” Experts typically distinguish among technologies where there is a “human in the loop” (semi-autonomous systems, in which a person controls the tech- nology as it operates), a “human on the loop” (human-supervised autonomous systems, in which a person can intervene and alter or ter- minate operations), and a “human out of the loop” (fully autonomous systems that operate independently).

The authors of that April statement want to ban fully autonomous systems, because they believe a requirement to maintain human con- trol over the use of weapons is needed to “pro- tect the dignity of human life, facilitate com- pliance with international humanitarian and human rights law, and promote accountability for unlawful acts.”

HRW and IHRC argue that killer robots

would necessarily “deprive people of their inherent dignity.” The core argument here is that inanimate machines cannot understand the

its loss, while soldiers can weigh “ethical and -

sions. In addition, the groups believe that LAWS could not comply with the requirements of

obligations to use force proportionally and to distinguish civilians from combatants. They fur- ther claim that killer robots, unlike soldiers and their commanders, could not be held account- able and punished for illegal acts.

Yet it may well be the case that killer robots could better protect human rights during com- bat than soldiers using conventional weapons do now, according to Temple University law professor Duncan Hollis in a January 2016 arti- cle in the Temple International and Comparative Law Journal.

Hollis notes that under international human rights law, states must conduct a legal review to ensure that any armaments, including autono- mous lethal weapons, are not strictly speaking unlawful—that is, they are neither indiscrimi- nate nor employ disproportionate force. To be lawful, a weapon must be capable of distin-

If killer robots could better discriminate between combatants and civilians and reduce the overall amount of suffering then they would not be per se illegal.

16 | reason | July 2016

Ronald Bailey

guishing between civilians and com- batants. Also, it must not by its very nature cause unnecessary suffering or

also be unlawful if its deleterious effects cannot be controlled.

Considerations like these have persuaded most governments to sign treaties outlawing the use of such indiscriminate, needlessly cruel, and uncontrolled weapons as antiperson- nel land mines and chemical and bio- logical agents. If killer robots could better discriminate between combat- ants and civilians and reduce the amount of suffering experienced by people caught up in battle then they would not be per se illegal.

Could killer robots meet these international human rights stan- dards? Ronald Arkin, a roboticist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, thinks they could. In fact, Arkin argues in the journal Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, LAWS could have sig-

human combatants. For example, killer robots do not need to protect themselves, and so could refrain from striking when in doubt about whether a target is a civilian or a com- batant. Warbots, he contends, could assume “far more risk on behalf of noncombatants than human war-

- tility and hostile intent, while assum- ing a ‘First do no harm’ rather than

stance.” LAWS, Arkin suggests, would

also employ superior sensor arrays, enabling them to make better battle-

make errors based on emotions— unlike soldiers, who experience fear, fatigue, and anger. They could integrate and evaluate far more

information faster in real time than could human soldiers. And they could objectively monitor the ethical behav-

report any infractions. Under the Geneva Convention,

the principle of proportionality prohibits “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a com- bination thereof, which would be

excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage antici- pated.” Human soldiers may take actions where they knowingly risk, but do not intend, harm to noncom- batants. In order to meet the require- ment of proportionality, autonomous weapons could be designed to be con- servative in their targeting choices: When in doubt, don’t attack.

In justifying their call for a ban, HRW and IHRC argue that soulless warbots cannot be held responsible for their actions, creating a morally unbridgeable “accountability gap.” Under the current laws of warfare, a commander is held responsible for an unreasonable failure to prevent a subordinate’s violations of interna- tional human rights laws. The orga- nizations that oppose the deployment of autonomous weapons argue that a commander or operator of a LAWS “could not be held directly liable for a fully autonomous weapon’s unlaw- ful actions because the robot would

have operated independently.” Hollis counters that since states and the people who represent them are sup- posed to be held accountable when the armed forces they command com- mit war crimes, they could similarly be held accountable for unleashing robots that violate human rights.

Peter Margulies, a professor of law at Roger Williams University, makes a similar argument. Holding commanders responsible for the actions of lethal autonomous weap- ons systems, he writes in the Research Handbook on Remote Warfare, is “a log-

it imposes liability on an individual with power and access to information

the [system’s] capabilities in war-

In order to augment command responsibility for warbots’ possible human rights infractions, Margulies suggests that states and militaries create a separate lethal autonomous

head up this dedicated command would be required to have a deep understanding of the limitations of the killer robots they have the author- ity to deploy. In ambiguous situa- tions, a killer robot should also have the capability to request a review by its human commanders of its pro- posed targets.

“The status quo is unaccept- able with respect to noncombatant deaths,” Arkin argues cogently. “It may be possible to save noncomba- tant lives through the use of this tech- nology—if done correctly—and these efforts should not be prematurely ter- minated by a preemptive ban.”

Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey (rbailey@ reason.com) is the author of The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century (St. Martin’s).

Lethal autonomous weapon systems would not make errors based on emotions— unlike human soldiers, who experience fear, fatigue, and anger.

reason | July 2016 | 17

Copyright of Reason is the property of Reason Foundation and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.