adapting the law of armed conflict to autonomous weapon systems

Loitering munitions are a distinct category of expendable uncrewed aircraft that can integrate sensor-based analysis to hover over, detect, and explode into targets. Loitering munitions: flagging an urgent need for legally binding rules for AWS.

Tom Watts, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow (Royal Holloway, University of London) argue that such loitering munitions set problematic precedents for human control over the use of force and underline the urgent need for legally binding rules on autonomous weapon systems (AWS). Ingvild Bode, Associate Professor at the Center for War Studies (University of Southern Denmark) and Dr. But “drones” that integrate automated, autonomous and AI technologies in targeting and mobility functions already exist – for example, in the form of loitering munitions that have been used in many recent conflicts, such as those in Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria and Ukraine. The story was later retracted when the US Air Force source clarified that the scenario described had been a “thought experiment”.

Earlier this month, a viral story alleged that a US Air Force simulation took place during which an “AI drone” “attacked” its human operator when they interfered with the targeting objectives set for the drone.

Adapting the law of armed conflict to autonomous weapon systems