Communications of the ACM

banned without requiring an inspection regime. Consider, for example, the relatively recent bans on blinding lasers or anti-personnel weapons, which are often offered as a model for arms control for LAWS. These bans rely on representatives of civil society, non-governmental organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, to monitor and stigmatize violations. So also will a ban on LAWS. However, blinding lasers and anti-personnel weapons were relatively easy to define. After the fact, the use of such weapons can be proven in a straightforward manner. Lethal autonomy, on the other hand, is not a weapon system. It is a feature set that can be added to many, if not all, weapon systems. Furthermore, the uses of autonomous killing features are likely to be masked.

• LAWS will be relatively easy to assemble using technologies developed for civilian applications. Thus their proliferation and availability to non-state actors cannot be effectively stopped.

In forging arms-control agreements definitional distinctions have always been important. Contentions that definitional consensus cannot be reached for autonomy or meaningful human control, that LAWS depend upon advanced AI, and that such systems are merely a distant speculative possibility repeatedly arose during the April discussion at the U. N. in Geneva, and generally served to obfuscate, not clarify, the debate. A circular and particularly unhelpful debate has ensued over the meaning of autonomy, with proponents and opponents of a ban struggling to establish a definition that serves their cause. For example, the U.K. delegation insists that autonomy implies near humanlike capabilitiese and anything short of this is merely an automated weapon. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots favors a definition where autonomy is the ability to perform a task without immediate intervention from a human. Similarly, definitions for meaningful human control range from a military leader specifying a kill order in advance of deploying a weapon system to having the real-time engagement of a human in the loop of selecting and killing a human target.

e While the U.K. representatives did not use this language, it does succinctly capture the delegation’s statements that all computerized systems are merely automated until they display advanced capabilities.

for IHL has been a core strategy for supporters of a ban.

Those among the more than 3, 100 AI/Robotics researchers who signed the Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter From AI & Robotics Researchersc are reflective of a broad consensus among citizens and even active military personnel who favor a preemptive ban. 4 This consensus is partially attributable to speculative, futuristic, and fictional scenarios. But perhaps even science fiction represents a deep intuition that unleashing LAWS is not a road humanity should tread.

Researchers who have waded into the debate over banning LAWS have come to appreciate the manner in which geopolitics, security concerns, the arcana of arms control, and linguistic obfuscations can turn a relatively straightforward proposal into an extremely complicated proposition. A ban on LAWS does not fit easily, or perhaps at all, into traditional models for arms control. If a ban, or even a moratorium, on the development of LAWS is to progress, it must be approached creatively.

I favor and have been a long-time supporter of a ban. While a review of the extensive debate as to whether LAWS should be banned is well beyond the scope of this paper, I wish to share a few creative proposals that could move the campaign to ban LAWS forward. Many of these proposals were expressed during my testimony at the CCW meeting in April and during a side luncheon event.d Before introducing those proposals, let me first point out some of the obstacles to fashioning an arms control agreement for LAWS.

Why Banning LAWS Is Problematic

˲ Unlike most other weapons that
have been banned, some uses of LAWS
c Available at http://bit.ly/1V9bls5
d The full April 12, 2016, testimony entitled,
Predictability and Lethal Autonomous Weap-
ons Systems (LAWS), is available at http://bit.
ly/2mjmuwH. An extended article accompa-
nied this testimony. That article was circulated
to all the CCW member states by the chair of
the meeting, Ambassador Michael Biontino of
Germany. It was also published in Robin Geiss,
Ed., 2017, “Lethal Autonomous Weapons Sys-
tems: Technology, Definition, Ethics, Law &
Security.” Federal Foreign Office, p. 295–312.
The luncheon event on April 11, 2016, was
sponsored by the United Nations Institute for
Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

are perceived as morally acceptable, if not morally obligatory. The simple fact that LAWS can be substituted for and thus save the lives of one’s own soldiers is the most obvious moral good. Unfortunately, this same moral good lowers the barriers to initiating new wars. Some nations will be emboldened to start wars if they believe they can achieve political objectives without the loss of their troops.

˲ It is unclear whether armed military robots should be viewed as weapon systems or weapon platforms, a distinction that has been central to many traditional arms control treaties. Range, payload, and other features are commonly used in arms control agreements to restrict the capabilities of a weapon system. A weapon platform can be regulated by restricting where it can be located. For example, agreements to restrict nuclear weapons will specify number of warheads and the range of the missiles upon which they are mounted, and even where the missiles can be stationed. With LAWS, what is actually being banned?

• Arms control agreements often focus on working out modes of verification and inspection regimes to determine whether adversaries are honoring the ban. The difference between a lethal and non-lethal robotic system may be little more than a few lines of code or a switch, which would be difficult to detect and could be removed before or added after an inspection. Proposed verification regimes for LAWS6 would be extremely difficult and costly to enforce. Military strategists do not want to restrict their options, when that of bad actors is unrestricted.