Automating War: The Need for Regulation

New technological developments in the area of robotics and artificial intelligence have made robotic weapons systems of increasing autonomy possible. Although thousands of unmanned systems have been deployed, the vast majority are unarmed, used primarily for reconnaissance or removal of explosives. But deployment of armed robotic weapons has begun and promises to accelerate rapidly in the next decade. This article begins by proposing definitions of autonomous or robotic weapons, outlines the most important obstacles to their introduction, and options for arms control. It makes three claims: first, robotic weapons such as unmanned vehicles could largely replace human soldiers in the battlespace in one or two decades; second, for technical, economic, and operational reasons robotic weapons will become increasingly autonomous; finally, these new types of conventional weapons could result in new dangers to international security that should be addressed before the weapons are introduced and proliferate widely. It is suggested that an outright ban would be unlikely to be successful and that it may not even be desirable. A ban of particular types of offensive automatic weapons (AW) and special provisions on defensive types would make most sense. © 2009, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.