It’s easy to assume that autonomous weapons will, as their technological capacity improves, someday surpass human beings in their decision-making capacity on the battlefield. Humans, after all, get tired. They are easily misguided, or ideologically bent, or lack good judgment. Technologically sophisticated weapons, meanwhile, will not suffer from any of these failings. But this assumption … Continued

When researchers in artificial intelligence released an open letter in July calling for a ban on "offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control," they specified that a ban might prohibit weapons such as "armed quadcopters" capable of identifying and killing people "meeting certain pre-defined criteria." But the ban would not include "cruise missiles or remotely … Continued

Autonomous weapons capable of selecting and attacking targets without human intervention are already a reality. Today they are largely restricted to targeting military objects in unpopulated areas—but fast-developing computer systems with enormous processing power and robust algorithms for artificial intelligence may soon have nations making concrete choices about deploying fully autonomous weapons in urban warfare. … Continued

Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Pakistan, and the Vatican—only these five states, out of the 87 that sent representatives to a 2014 UN conference on lethal autonomous weapons, submitted statements urging that autonomous weapons systems be banned. Meanwhile, several dozen nations may be developing military robotics. In this environment, it seems highly unlikely that lethal autonomous weapons … Continued

The other authors in this roundtable express reasonable concerns about autonomous weapons, but give too little consideration to the civilian carnage caused by terrorists—carnage that might someday be reduced by autonomous weapons systems under effective regulation. Lethal autonomous weapons require effective international regulation—that's one point on which all authors in this roundtable agree. One participant, … Continued

Computers have long outperformed humans at certain functions that are perceived to require "intelligence." A famous early example is the Bombe machine developed during World War II at Bletchley Park, which allowed the United Kingdom to decipher messages encoded by the German military's Enigma machines. In 1997, the IBM computer Deep Blue beat world chess … Continued

When it comes to future autonomous weapons, many governments say they want to ensure humans remain in control over lethal force. The example of the heavily automated air defense systems that militaries use to guard protected airspace shows that doing so will be difficult.

Hunting in packs. Patrolling computer networks. Deployed on land, at sea, in the air, in space—everywhere. Deployed autonomous weapons certainly sound sinister. But on balance, would they promote or detract from civilian safety? Answering this question requires a clear understanding of the term "civilian safety." If it means protecting civilian lives during armed conflict, then … Continued

As countries around the world race to incorporate AI and greater autonomous functionality into weapons, the years-long debate at the United Nations over what if anything to do about lethal autonomous weapons has not resulted in an answer. Here's one path forward.

A former Army Ranger—who happens to have led the team that established Defense Department policy on autonomous weapons—explains in a Bulletin interview what these weapons are good for, what they’re bad at, and why banning them is going to be a very difficult challenge.

The failure of the chemical weapons ban in Syria is not a strike against a proposed global ban on autonomous weapons. Bans derive their strength from morality, not practicality.

Should legal and regulatory norms be adjusted to address the threat of hyperintelligent autonomous weapons in the future? Maybe—but dumb autonomous weapons are altering norms right now.

Some say trying to use the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to pre-emptively ban lethal autonomous weapons systems has failed—and consequently should be abandoned. This argument is wrong.

The campaign against fully autonomous weapons may be a road map for confronting tomorrow’s dangerous technologies