Lethal Autonomous Weapons: 10 things we want to know

Paola Gaeta and Abhimanyu George Jain interview Dr. Kenneth Payne, Reader in International Relations at King’s College London, where he conducts research in political psychology. In this episode, he talks about how lethal autonomous weapons systems will affect military strategy and change the nature of armed conflict. Kenneth Payne is the author of I, Warbot: The Dawn of Artificially Intelligent Conflict (Hurst, 2021), Strategy, Evolution, and War: From Apes to Artificial Intelligence (Georgetown University Press, 2018), ‘Artificial Intelligence: A Revolution in Strategic Affairs?’ 60(5) Survival (2018) 7-32, and ‘Strategy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’ (with Kareem Ayoub), 39(5-6) Journal of Strategic Studies (2016) 793-819. For more information on the Lethal Autonomous Weapons and War Crimes research project, visit our website https://lawsandwarcrimes.com 

Paola Gaeta and Marta Bo interview Dr. Ingvild Bode, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern Denmark, where she leads an ERC research project on autonomous weapons systems and international norms (AUTONORMS). In this episode, she talks about what meaningful human control means and how lessons learned from existing automated systems can guide our understanding of meaningful human control in relation to lethal autonomous weapons. Ingvild Bode is the author of Meaning-less human control: Lessons from air defence systems on meaningful human control for the debate on AWS (with Tom Watts, 2021) and ‘The future of remote warfare? Artificial intelligence, weapons systems and human control’ (with Hendrik Huelss) in A. McKay, A. Watson, & M. Karlshøj-Pedersen (Eds.), Remote warfare: Interdisciplinary perspectives, 218-233 (E-International Relations Publishing, 2021).For more information on the Lethal Autonomous Weapons and War Crimes research project, visit our website https://lawsandwarcrimes.com

Paola Gaeta and Alessandra Spadaro interview Richard Moyes, Managing Director of Article 36, a non-profit organization focused on reducing harm from weapons and actively working, among other things, for the adoption of new legal standards on emerging technologies. In this episode, he talks about the prospects for the adoption of a new treaty regulating autonomous weapons. Richard Moyes authored several short papers for Article 36, including Regulating autonomy in weapons systems (with Elizabeth Minor, 2020), Autonomy in weapons systems – considering approaches to regulation (2020), and Autonomy in weapons systems: mapping a structure for regulation through specific policy questions (2019). He is also the co-host of the Article 36 podcast: Regulating Autonomous Weapons.For more information on the Lethal Autonomous Weapons and War Crimes research project, visit our website https://lawsandwarcrimes.com

Paola Gaeta and Marta Bo interview Dustin Lewis, Research Director of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, where he leads research on contemporary challenges concerning armed conflict, including algorithmic warfare. In this episode, he tackles the issue of who bears responsibility for the violations of the laws of warfare committed when lethal autonomous weapons are used in the targeting process. Dustin Lewis is the author of ‘Preconditions for Applying International Law to Autonomous Cyber Capabilities’, in Rain Liivoja and Ann Väljataga (eds), Autonomous Cyber Capabilities under International Law, 106-125 (NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence 2021), ‘On “Responsible A.I.” in War: Exploring Preconditions for Respecting International Law in Armed Conflict’, in Silja Vöneky et al (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Responsible Artificial Intelligence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (CUP forthcoming 2021), Three Pathways to Secure Greater Respect for International Law concerning War Algorithms (Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, Legal Commentary, 2020) and War-Algorithm Accountability (with Gabriella Blum and Naz K. Modirzadeh) (Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, Research Briefing, 2016). For more information on the Lethal Autonomous Weapons and War Crimes research project, visit our website https://lawsandwarcrimes.com