The Guiding Principles are a starting point for discussing how autonomous weapons might be somewhat constrained and what ‘good’ practice might look like.
With the current banphobia in Geneva, it is important note that those who seek a regulation, maintenance of human control over LAWS or a ban seek the same thing.
Technology offers military decision-makers an alluring appeal to technological fixes to ethico-political dilemmas of killing in war.
A world that emphasizes the role of efficiency-driven technological solutions could produce a universe in which humanity is terrorized by its own technological offspring.
Eye in the Sky fails to explore the real utilitarian calculations, and ethical concerns, of the US Coalition drone programme.
Humanity is increasingly going to be faced with technological changes that challenge politics and law at every level. It is unclear whether existing institutions will be able to cope.
The speculative nature of posthumanism requires that we have some sense of imagination as to how our humanity might comprehensively be affected by technology.
We need not be grateful for the ‘protection’ of killer robots; we may instead mimic Lysistrata and humanize the very structure of protection in the 21st century.
As the line between peace and war further blurs, autonomous weapons offer clear advantages while simultaneously raising powerful, but somewhat nebulous, moral concerns.
Using robots for targeted killing raises the question if this practice counts as “war”. Deciding about killer robots means deciding about the future of war and killing.
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