Non-lethal weapons have become an increasingly important class of weapons. Creating these armaments requires examination of ethical issues in their research and development processes. Chief a...

Neither non-lethal violence nor psychochemical weapons are new concepts. History provides examples of attempts to use these both to limit the scope of war and to turn mind-altering compounds into weapons. One of these substances has been marijuana. Although previous efforts to find its military applications failed, the idea persists – as indicated by a US patent granted in 2017. As “weaponized cannabis” may again attract the interest of government agencies, the consequences of its potential deployment call (...) for a debate. In an attempt to encourage such a discussion, in the context of the ongoing decriminalization/legalization of marijuana in some countries and US states, the article raises ethical issues pertaining to weaponized cannabinoids. It argues against the militarization of the drug, on the basis that such a development would constitute an ultimate instrumentalization of marijuana and result in a dangerous destabilizing reconstruction of its meaning along the lines of state coercion. (shrink)

Weapons of both defense and offense have grown steadily in their effectiveness—especially since the industrial revolution. The mass destruction of humanity, by parts or in whole, became reality with the advent of toxic agents founded on chemistry and biology or nuclear weapons derived from physics. The military’s new non-combat roles, combined with a quest for non-lethal weapons, may change the picture in regard to conventional defense establishments but are unlikely to deter bellicose tyrants or the new (...) terrorists from using the unlimited potential of today’s and tomorrow’s arsenals. The author addresses the issues that are raised by this developing situation with the intent of seeking those ethics that will enable us to survive in a future and uncertain world. (shrink)

Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) are artificial intelligence systems that can make and act on decisions concerning the termination of enemy soldiers and installations without direct intervention from a human being. In this article, I provide the positive moral case for the development and use of supervised and fully autonomous weapons that can reliably adhere to the laws of war. Two strong, prima facie obligations make up the positive case. First, we have a strong moral reason to deploy AWS (...) (in an otherwise just war) because such systems decrease the psychological and moral risk of soldiers and would-be soldiers. Drones protect against lethal risk, AWS protect against psychological and moral risk in addition to lethal risk. Second, we have a prima facie obligation to develop such technologies because, once developed, we could employ forms of non-lethal warfare that would substantially reduce the risk of suffering and death for enemy combatants and civilians alike. These two arguments, covering both sides of a conflict, represent the normative hill that those in favor of a ban on autonomous weapons must overcome. Finally, I demonstrate that two recent objections to AWS fail because they misconstrue the way in which technology is used and conceptualized in modern warfare. (shrink)

In this article, we focus on the attribution of moral responsibility for the actions of autonomous weapons systems (AWS). To do so, we suggest that the responsibility gap can be closed if human agents can take meaningful moral responsibility for the actions of AWS. This is a moral responsibility attributed to individuals in a justified and fair way and which is accepted by individuals as an assessment of their own moral character. We argue that, given the unpredictability of AWS, (...) meaningful moral responsibly can only be discharged by human agents who are willing to take a moral gambit: they decide to design/develop/deploy AWS despite the uncertainty about the effects an AWS may produce, hoping that unintended and unwanted or unforeseen outcomes may never occurs, but also accepting to be held responsible if such outcomes will occur. We argue that, while a moral gambit is permissible for the use of non-lethal AWS, this is not the case for the actions of lethal autonomous weapon systems. (shrink)

Most contemporary conflicts can be characterized as ‘wars or conflicts amongst the people’. International military forces deployed in such conflicts are confronted with complex operational environments where the distinction between combatants and non-combatants is often impossible to make. At the same time, there is a moral requirement imposed on Western coalition forces to perform in a humane manner and to keep casualties to a minimum. Non-lethal weapons are expected to enable military forces to accomplish their mission without having (...) to kill or destroy. The extent to which these weapons meet that promise in real world conditions is the subject of debate. A defence technology assessment of non-lethal weapons is proposed that validates their utility and moral implications by considering the user, the weapon and the target in the context of the deployment situation. It will be illustrated that the technical parameters of the non-lethal weapons are no guarantee that the weapons will perform as intended as the user and target introduce many factors of uncertainty in real world situations. Although such uncertainties undermine the moral acceptability of non-lethal weapons, it is argued that the principle of non-lethality is compliant with the Just War Tradition principle of proportionality. The principles of non-combatant immunity and discrimination need to be re-calibrated given the human-centricity of many military intervention operations. (shrink)

Efforts to resolve the tension within the Christian moral theological tradition between just war theory and pacifism have so far not produced any broadly accepted resolution. Key sticking points lie both in the fact that even a just war typically involves the taking of human life, both combatant and civilian, and that the distinction between intentional and unintentional killing, so important to Christian moral reflection, is difficult to sustain in practice. Yet, with the prospect of the development of effective (...) non-lethal weapons, the path may be opened up to a genuine resolution of the tension. This article describes in general terms the way that such a development might be pursued, but also argues that the use of non-lethal weaponry would necessitate a re-interpretation of warfare as an exercise in a form of international policing. A number of potential criticisms of such a proposal are considered. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) have becomes the subject of continuous debate both at national and international levels. Arguments have been proposed both for the development and use of LAWs as well as their prohibition from combat landscapes. Regardless, the development of LAWs continues in numerous nation-states. This paper builds upon previous philosophical arguments for the development and use of LAWs and proposes a design framework that can be used to ethically direct their development. The (...) conclusion is that the philosophical arguments that underpin the adoption of LAWs rather than not, although prima facie insufficient, can be actualized through the proposed Value Sensitive Design (VSD) approach. Hence, what is proposed is a principled design approach that can be used to embed stakeholder values into a design, encourage stakeholder cooperation and coordination and as a result promote social acceptance of LAWs as a preferable future fact of war. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) are robotic weapons systems, primarily of value to the military, that could engage in offensive or defensive actions without human intervention. This paper assesses and engages the current arguments for and against the use of LAWs through the lens of achieving more ethical warfare. Specific interest is given particularly to ethical LAWs, which are artificially intelligent weapons systems that make decisions within the bounds of their ethics-based code. To ensure that a wide, (...) but not exhaustive, survey of the implications of employing such ethical devices to replace humans in warfare is taken into account, this paper will engage on matters related to current scholarship on the rejection or acceptance of LAWs—including contemporary technological shortcomings of LAWs to differentiate between targets and the behavioral and psychological volatility of humans—and current and proposed regulatory infrastructures for developing and using such devices. After careful consideration of these factors, this paper will conclude that only ethical LAWs should be used to replace human involvement in war, and, by extension of their consistent abilities, should remove humans from war until a more formidable discovery is made in conducting ethical warfare. (shrink)

The question of whether new rules or regulations are required to govern, restrict, or even prohibit the use of autonomous weapon systems has been the subject of debate for the better part of a decade. Despite the claims of advocacy groups, the way ahead remains unclear since the international community has yet to agree on a specific definition of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems and the great powers have largely refused to support an effective ban. In this vacuum, the public (...) has been presented with a heavily one-sided view of Killer Robots. This interdisciplinary volume presents a more nuanced approach to autonomous weapon systems that recognizes the need to progress beyond a discourse framed by the Terminator and HAL 9000. Re-shaping the discussion around this emerging military innovation requires a new line of thought and a willingness to challenge the orthodoxy. Lethal Autonomous Weapons focuses on exploring the moral and legal issues associated with the design, development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons. The volume brings together some of the most prominent academics and academic-practitioners in the lethal autonomous weapons space and seeks to return some balance to the debate. As part of this effort, it recognizes that society needs to invest in hard conversations that tackle the ethics, morality, and law of these new digital technologies and understand the human role in their creation and operation. (shrink)

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) can, on the one hand, be considered vital for the global governance process—in the sense of urging international cooperation on the ethical, developmental, and standards aspects of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). On the other hand, the CCW may also embody a global trend that does not augur well for international solidarity, namely the lack of credible and comprehensive collaboration to advance global objectives of peace and security. In 2022, a (...) majority of the 125 nations that belong to the CCW requested limits on a specific type of lethal autonomous weapons: “killer robots.” Yet, most of the major global powers—namely the United States, Russia, and China—opposed not only a ban on LAWS but also on any restrictions on the development of these weapons, not least because the United States, Russia, and China are actively developing this weapons technology. While there is currently much focus on the technological evolution of LAWS, less has been written about how ethical values can exert influence on a growing global consciousness around factors such as power, technology, human judgment, accountability, autonomy, dehumanization, and the use of force. This introduction lays the groundwork for dealing with these issues. It does so by showing that all these factors warrant a pluralist approach to the global governance of LAWS, based on multiple grounds, including the military, tech, law, and distinctive theoretical-ethical orientations; the rationale being to combine this expertise into a collection for publication. Reflecting the contributing authors’ firsthand experiences of the ethics surrounding the management of LAWS to address decisive and critical questions at an expert level, it provides a framing for the collection, showing that the use of international legal mechanisms like the CCW are crucial to considering both the potential and the limits of LAWS, as well as what it can contribute to areas such as international law, human rights, and national security. (shrink)

In this article we focus on the jus in bello principle of necessity for guiding the use of autonomous weapons systems (AWS). We begin our analysis with an account of the principle of necessity as entailing the requirement of minimal force found in Just War Theory, before highlighting the absence of this principle in existing work on AWS. Overlooking this principle means discounting the obligations that combatants have towards one another in times of war. We argue that the requirement (...) of minimal force is an important requirement for considering ethical uses of force. In particular, we distinguish between lethal and non-lethal purposes of use of force and introduce the prospect of non-lethal AWS before reviewing a number of challenges which AWS pose with respect to their non-lethal use. The challenges arise where AWS generate unpredictable outcomes impinging upon the situational awareness required of combatants to ensure that their actions meet the requirement of minimal force. We conclude with a call for further research on the ethical implications of non-lethal uses of AWS as a necessary contribution for assessing the moral permissibility of AWS. (shrink)

In this article we focus on the jus in bello principle of necessity for guiding the use of autonomous weapons systems (AWS). We begin our analysis with an account of the principle of necessity as entailing the requirement of minimal force found in Just War Theory, before highlighting the absence of this principle in existing work on AWS. Overlooking this principle means discounting the obligations that combatants have towards one another in times of war. We argue that the requirement (...) of minimal force is an important requirement for considering ethical uses of force. In particular, we distinguish between lethal and non-lethal purposes of use of force and introduce the prospect of non-lethal AWS before reviewing a number of challenges which AWS pose with respect to their non-lethal use. The challenges arise where AWS generate unpredictable outcomes impinging upon the situational awareness required of combatants to ensure that their actions meet the requirement of minimal force. We conclude with a call for further research on the ethical implications of non-lethal uses of AWS as a necessary contribution for assessing the moral permissibility of AWS. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the question of equipping fully autonomous robotic weapons with the capacity to kill. Current ideas concerning the feasibility and advisability of developing and deploying such weapons, including the proposal that they be equipped with a so-called “ethical governor”, are reviewed and critiqued. The perspective adopted for this study includes software engineering practice as well as ethical and legal aspects of the use of lethal autonomous robotic weapons. (...) Design/methodology/approach – In the paper, the author survey and critique the applicable literature. Findings – In the current paper, the author argue that fully autonomous robotic weapons with the capacity to kill should neither be developed nor deployed, that research directed toward equipping such weapons with a so-called “ethical governor” is immoral and serves as an “ethical smoke-screen” to legitimize research and development of these weapons and that, as an ethical duty, engineers and scientists should condemn and refuse to participate in their development. Originality/value – This is a new approach to the argument for banning autonomous lethal robotic weapons based on classical work of Joseph Weizenbaum, Helen Nissenbaum and others. (shrink)

Regulating war has long been a concern of the international community. From the Hague Conventions to the Geneva Conventions and the multiple treaties and related institutions that have emerged in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, efforts to mitigate the horrors of war have focused on regulating weapons, defining combatants, and ensuring access to the battlefield for humanitarians. But regulation and legal codes alone cannot be the end point of an engaged ethical response to new weapons developments. This short (...) essay reviews some of the existing ethical works on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), highlighting how rule- and consequence-based accounts fail to provide adequate guidance for how to deal with them. I propose a virtue-based account, which I link up with an Aristotelian framework, for how the international community might better address these weapons systems. (shrink)

The laws are not silent in war, but what should they say? What is the moral function of the law of armed conflict? Should the law protect civilians who do not fight but help those who do? Should the law protect soldiers who perform non-combat functions or who may be safely captured? How certain should a soldier be that an individual is a combatant rather than a civilian before using lethal force? What risks should soldiers take on themselves to (...) avoid harming civilians? When do inaccurate weapons become unlawfully indiscriminate? When does 'collateral damage' to civilians become unlawfully disproportionate? Should civilians lose their legal rights by serving, voluntarily or involuntarily, as human shields? Finally, when should killing civilians constitute a war crime? These are the questions that Law and Morality at War answers, contributing to a cutting-edge international debate. Drawing on the concepts and methods of contemporary moral and legal philosophy, the book develops a normative framework within which the laws of war and international criminal law can be evaluated, criticized, and reformed. While several philosophical works critically examine the moral status of civilians and combatants, this book fills a gap, offering both an account of the laws of war and war crimes, and proposing how the law could be improved from a moral point of view. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robotics is pervasive in daily life and set to expand to new levels potentially replacing human decision-making and action. Self-driving cars, home and healthcare robots, and autonomous weapons are some examples. A distinction appears to be emerging between potentially benevolent civilian uses of the technology (eg unmanned aerial vehicles delivering medicines), and potentially malevolent military uses (eg lethal autonomous weapons killing human com- batants). Machine-mediated human interaction challenges the philosophical basis of human existence and (...) ethical conduct. Aside from technical challenges of ensuring ethical conduct in artificial intelligence and robotics, there are moral questions about the desirability of replacing human functions and the human mind with such technology. How will artificial intelligence and robotics engage in moral reasoning in order to act ethically? Is there a need for a new set of moral rules? What happens to human interaction when it is mediated by technology? Should such technology be used to end human life? Who bears responsibility for wrongdoing or harmful conduct by artificial intelligence and robotics? -/- Whilst Kant may be familiar to international lawyers for setting restraints on the use of force and rules for perpetual peace, his foundational work on ethics provides an inclusive moral philosophy for assessing ethical conduct of individuals and states and, thus, is relevant to discussions on the use and development of artificial intelligence and robotics. His philosophy is inclusive because it incorporates justifications for morals and legitimate responses to immoral conduct, and applies to all human agents irrespective of whether they are wrongdoers, unlawful combatants, or unjust enemies. Humans are at the centre of rational thinking, action, and norm-creation so that the rationale for restraints on methods and means of warfare, for example, is based on preserving human dignity as well as ensuring conditions for perpetual peace among states. Unlike utilitarian arguments which favour use of autonomous weapons on the basis of cost-benefit reasoning or the potential to save lives, Kantian ethics establish non-consequentialist and deontological rules which are good in themselves to follow and not dependent on expediency or achieving a greater public good. -/- Kantian ethics make two distinct contributions to the debate. First, they provide a human-centric ethical framework whereby human exist- ence and capacity are at the centre of a norm-creating moral philosophy guiding our understanding of moral conduct. Second, the ultimate aim of Kantian ethics is practical philosophy that is relevant and applicable to achieving moral conduct. -/- I will seek to address the moral questions outlined above by exploring how core elements of Kantian ethics relate to use of artificial intelli- gence and robotics in the civilian and military spheres. Section 2 sets out and examines core elements of Kantian ethics: the categorical imperative; autonomy of the will; rational beings and rational thinking capacity; and human dignity and humanity as an end in itself. Sections 3-7 consider how these core elements apply to artificial intelligence and robotics with discussion of fully autonomous and human-machine rule-generating approaches; types of moral reasoning; the difference be- tween ‘human will’ and ‘machine will’; and respecting human dignity. (shrink)

The possible future use of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) and the challenges associated with assigning moral responsibility leads to several debates. Some authors argue that the highly autonomous capability of such systems may lead to a so-called responsibility gap in situations where LAWS cause serious violations of international humanitarian law. One proposed solution is the doctrine of command responsibility. Despite the doctrine’s original development to govern human interactions on the battlefield, it is worth considering whether the (...) doctrine of command responsibility could provide a solution by applying the notion analogously to LAWS. A fundamental condition underpinning the doctrine’s application is the control requirement, stipulating that a superior must exert some degree of control over subordinates. The aim of this article is to provide an in-depth analysis of this control condition and assess whether it leads to the impossibility of applying the doctrine of command responsibility to LAWS. To this end, the first section briefly introduces the topic of LAWS and responsibility gaps. The subsequent section provides a concise overview of the doctrine itself and the conditions typically necessitated for its application. In the third section, a comprehensive scrutiny of the control requirement is undertaken through examination of key case law, examining how the concept has been interpreted. Finally, the fourth section delves into the evaluation of commanders’ potential to exert effective control over their (non-human) subordinates. Based on this, the feasibility of considering command responsibility as a viable solution is assessed, aiming to determine whether its application should be prima facie excluded or warrants further exploration. (shrink)

Plans to automate killing by using robots armed with lethal weapons have been a prominent feature of most US military forces? roadmaps since 2004. The idea is to have a staged move from ?man-in-the-loop? to ?man-on-the-loop? to full autonomy. While this may result in considerable military advantages, the policy raises ethical concerns with regard to potential breaches of International Humanitarian Law, including the Principle of Distinction and the Principle of Proportionality. Current applications of remote piloted robot planes or (...) drones offer lessons about how automated weapons platforms could be misused by extending the range of legally questionable, targeted killings by security and intelligence forces. Moreover, the alleged moral disengagement by remote pilots will only be exacerbated by the use of autonomous robots. Leaders in the international community need to address the difficult legal and moral issues now, before the current mass proliferation of development reaches fruition. (shrink)

Despite resistance from various societal actors, the development and deployment of lethal autonomous weaponry to warzones is perhaps likely, considering the perceived operational and ethical advantage such weapons are purported to bring. In this paper, it is argued that the deployment of truly autonomous weaponry presents an ethical danger by calling into question the ability of such weapons to abide by the Laws of War. This is done by noting the resonances between battlefield target identification and (...) the process of ontic-ontological investigation detailed in Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, before arguing that the nature of lethal autonomous weaponry precludes them from being able to engage in such investigations—a key requisite for abiding by the relevant legislation that governs battlefield conduct. (shrink)

Autonomous and automatic weapons would be fire and forget: you activate them, and they decide who, when and how to kill; or they kill at a later time a target you’ve selected earlier. Some argue that this sort of killing is always wrong. If killing is to be done, it should be done only under direct human control. (E.g., Mary Ellen O’Connell, Peter Asaro, Christof Heyns.) I argue that there are surprisingly many kinds of situation where this is false (...) and where the use of Automated Weapons Systems would in fact be morally required. These include cases where a) once one has activated a weapon expected then to behave lethally, it would be appropriate to let it continue because this is part of a plan whose goodness one was best positioned to evaluate before activating the weapon; b) one expects better long-term consequences from allowing it to continue; c) allowing it to continue would express a decision you made to be resolute, a decision that could not have advantaged you had it not been true that you would carry through with it; d) the weapon is mechanically not recallable, so that, to not allow it to carry through, you would have had to refrain from activating it in the first place, something you expected would have disastrous consequences; e) you must deputize necessary killings to autonomous machines in order to protect yourself from guilt you shouldn’t have to bear; f) it would be morally better for the burden of responsibility for the killing to be shared among several agents, and the agents deputizing killing to machines can do this, especially where it’s not predictable which machine will be successful; g) a killing would be morally better done with elements of randomness and lack of deliberation, and a (relatively stupid) machine could do this where a person could not; h) the machine would be acting as a Doomsday Device, so that it could not have had its hoped for deterrent effect had you not ensured that you would be unable to recall it if enemy action activated it; i) letting it carry through is a necessary part of its own learning process, and you expect that this learning will have salutary effects later on; j) human intervention in the machine’s operation would disastrously impair its precision, or its speed and efficiency; k) using non-automated methods would require human resources you just don’t have in a task that nevertheless must be done (e.g., using land-mines to protect remote installations); l) the weapon has such horrible and indiscriminate power that it is doubtful whether it could be actually used in ways compatible with International Humanitarian Law and the Laws of War, which require that weapons be used only in ways respecting distinctness, necessity and proportionality, but its threat of use could respect these principles in affording deterrence provided human error cannot lead to their accidental deployment, this requiring that they be controlled by carefully designed autonomous and automatic systems. I then consider objections based on conceptions of human dignity and find that very often dignity too is best served by autonomous machine killing. Examples include saving your village by activating a robot to kill invading enemies who would inflict great indignity on your village, using a suicide robot to save yourself from a less dignified death at enemy hands, using a robotic drone to kill someone otherwise not accessible in order to restore dignity to someone this person killed and to his family, and using a robot to kill someone who needs killing, but the killing of whom by a human executioner would soil the executioner’s dignity. I conclude that what matters in rightful killing isn’t necessarily that it be under the direct control of a human, but that it be under the control of morality; and that could sometimes require use of an autonomous or automated device. (This paper was formerly called "Fire and Forget: A Defense of the Use of Autonomous Weapons in War" on Philpapers; the current title is the title of the published version.). (shrink)

The 2016 United Nations’ Resolution 2325 “Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction” manifests one of the greatest challenges for humankind in relation to preventing a global catastrophe, where it reaffirms that the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as their means of delivery, constitutes a threat to international peace and security. However, regarding the continuous technological developments of terrestrial-based WMD aimed at orbiting space objects in near-Earth orbit, it is crucial to analyze whether, and if (...) so, how 2325 prevents their proliferation and utilization. Another relevant argument addresses the terminological factuality that, while treaty and customary law do provide some guidance on the legality of weaponization, the concept of a “space weapon” is still not clearly defined. Moreover, even though the Outer Space Treaty prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons and WMD in near-Earth orbit, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space, it simultaneously excludes terrestrial-based anti-satellite weapons, thus creating a legal loophole. National representatives of superpowers, particularly of space-faring nations, are aware of the existing issue and often express their concerns toward comprehensive ASAT development and utilization. Nevertheless, the potential weaponization of outer space will not be actively recognized and accepted as an official occurrence within the international community until our current space systems are eventually utilized in order to destroy or damage another State’s space object. (shrink)

This essay exposes how recent attempts at lethal injection reform have involved unethical and illegal research on prisoners. States are varying the doses and types of drugs used, developing methods designed for non-medical professionals to administer medical procedures, and gathering data or making provisions for the gathering of data to learn from executions gone wrong. When individual prisoners are executed under these conditions, states are conducting research on them. Conducting research or experimentation on prisoners in the process of reform (...) is problematic because it violates ethical frameworks and state laws. The Supreme Court has recently taken up the challenge of elucidating the standard for determining the constitutionality of lethal injection. If the Court suggests an approach to lethal injection reform that is akin to some of the more thoughtful and cautious approaches other courts have proposed, the Court's decision may also contravene state laws or ethical precepts regarding research with prisoners. Thus, this paper provides important limitations on the kinds of reform that may be permissible and outlines the open questions that must be addressed before it can be determined whether the risks and uncertainties involved in lethal injection can be remedied. (shrink)

There is increasing speculation within military and policy circles that the future of armed conflict is likely to include extensive deployment of robots designed to identify targets and destroy them without the direct oversight of a human operator. My aim in this paper is twofold. First, I will argue that the ethical case for allowing autonomous targeting, at least in specific restricted domains, is stronger than critics have acknowledged. Second, I will attempt to uncover, explicate, and defend the intuition that (...) even in this context there would be something ethically problematic about such targeting. I argue that an account of the non-consequentialist foundations of the principle of distinction suggests that the use of autonomous weapon systems is unethical by virtue of failing to show appropriate respect for the humanity of our enemies. However, the success of the strongest form of this argument depends upon understanding the robot itself as doing the killing. To the extent that we believe that, on the contrary, AWS are only the means whereby those who order them into action kill, the idea that the use of AWS fails to respect the humanity of our enemy will turn upon an account of what is required by respect that is essentially conventional. Thus, while the theoretical foundations of the idea that AWS are weapons that are “evil in themselves” are weaker than critics have sometimes maintained, they are nonetheless sufficient to the task of demanding a prohibition of the development and deployment of such weapons. (shrink)

Rapid technological change is resulting in the development of ever increasingly capable autonomous weapon systems. As they become more sophisticated, the calls for developing restrictions on their use, up to and including their complete prohibition, are growing. Not unlike the call for restrictions on the sale and use of drones, most proposed restrictions are well-intentioned but are often ill-informed, with a high likelihood of degrading national security and putting additional lives at risk. Employed by experienced operators well-versed in the (...) laws of armed conflict, autonomous weapons can advance the objectives of those who would prohibit their use. This essay takes an operational perspective to examine the role that autonomous weapon systems can play while complying with the laws of armed conflict. With responsible design and incorporation of applicable control measures, autonomous weapons will be able not just to comply but also to enhance the ethical use of force. This essay contends that efforts by the international community to use international legal means and/or institutions to over-regulate or even ban lethal autonomous weapons are counterproductive. It considers and describes the end-game results of the use of autonomous weapons in enhancing the application of both international law and human ethical values. (shrink)

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is a design methodology developed by Batya Friedman and Peter Kahn (2003) that brings in moral deliberations in an early stage of a design process. It assumes that neither technology itself is value neutral, nor shifts the value-ladennes to the sole usage of technology. This paper adds to emerging literature onVSD for autonomous weapons systems development and discusses extant literature on values in autonomous systems development in general and in autonomous weapons (...) class='Hi'>development in particular. I identify opportunities, such as public debates, and threats, such as the classified nature of the design process, for VSD in autonomous weapons development. This paper contributes to academic debates about the non-neutrality of technology by pointing out that values have been and can be explicitly designed into autonomous systems. It is informative for policy makers and designers who are tasked with developing actual autonomous weapons or policies around such systems, as they learn about an established design methodology that is sensitive to societal concerns and industry needs and that can be applied to autonomous weapons systems. (shrink)

There has recently been increasing interest in the possibility and ethics of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), which would combine sophisticated AI with machinery capable of deadly force. One objection to LAWS is that their use will create a troubling responsibility gap, where no human agent can properly be held accountable for the outcomes that they create. While some authors have attempted to show that individual agents can, in fact, be responsible for the behaviour of LAWS in various (...) circumstances, this will not be possible in all cases. This article argues, however, that by assigning responsibilities to group agents operating within the military‐industrial complex, as well as the military‐industrial complex as a whole, we may be able to close the responsibility gap, or at least reduce its costs. Insofar as the potential for responsibility gaps poses an ethical barrier to the development and deployment of LAWS, this argument, if sound, may show their use to be morally permissible in a greater range of cases. (shrink)

Polo‐like kinase 1 (PLK1) is a serine/threonine kinase that plays multiple and essential roles during the cell division cycle. Its inhibition in cultured cells leads to severe mitotic aberrancies and cell death. Whereas previous reports suggested that Plk1 depletion in mice leads to a non‐mitotic arrest in early embryos, we show here that the bi‐allelic Plk1 depletion in mice certainly results in embryonic lethality due to extensive mitotic aberrations at the morula stage, including multi‐ and mono‐polar spindles, impaired chromosome segregation (...) and cytokinesis failure. In addition, the conditional depletion of Plk1 during mid‐gestation leads also to severe mitotic aberrancies. Our data also confirms that Plk1 is completely dispensable for mitotic entry in vivo. On the other hand, Plk1 haploinsufficient mice are viable, and Plk1‐heterozygous fibroblasts do not harbor any cell cycle alterations. Plk1 is overexpressed in many human tumors, suggesting a therapeutic benefit of inhibiting Plk1, and specific small‐molecule inhibitors for this kinase are now being evaluated in clinical trials. Therefore, the different Plk1 mouse models here presented are a valuable tool to reexamine the relevance of the mitotic kinase Plk1 during mammalian development and animal physiology. (shrink)

This chapter considers how the adoption of autonomous weapons systems (AWS) may affect jus ad bellum principles of warfare. In particular, it focuses on the use of AWS in non-international armed conflicts (NIAC). Given the proliferation of NIAC, the development and use of AWS will most likely be attuned to this specific theater of war. As warfare waged by modernized liberal democracies (those most likely to develop and employ AWS at present) increasingly moves toward a model of individualized (...) warfare, how, if at all, will the principles by which we measure the justness of the commencement of such hostilities be affected by the introduction of AWS, and how will such hostilities stack up to current legal agreements surrounding their more traditional engagement? This chapter claims that such considerations give us reason to question the moral and legal necessity of ad bellum proper authority. (shrink)

Firearm violence is a major public health problem in the United States. In 2000, firearms were used in 10,801 homicides – two-thirds of all homicides in the U.S. – and 533,470 non-fatal criminal victimizations including rapes, robberies, and assaults. The social costs of gun violence in the United States are also staggering, and have been estimated to be on the order of $100 billion per year.Illegal gun carrying, usually concealed, in public places is an important risk factor for firearm-related crime. (...) In the 1980s and 1990s, police departments across the country began to develop and implement strategies to address illegal weapons carrying. Often these strategies have involved aggressive efforts to identify and physically search individuals suspected of illegally carrying a firearm. (shrink)

Firearm violence is a major public health problem in the United States. In 2000, firearms were used in 10,801 homicides – two-thirds of all homicides in the U.S. – and 533,470 non-fatal criminal victimizations including rapes, robberies, and assaults. The social costs of gun violence in the United States are also staggering, and have been estimated to be on the order of $100 billion per year.Illegal gun carrying, usually concealed, in public places is an important risk factor for firearm-related crime. (...) In the 1980s and 1990s, police departments across the country began to develop and implement strategies to address illegal weapons carrying. Often these strategies have involved aggressive efforts to identify and physically search individuals suspected of illegally carrying a firearm. (shrink)

Preface 1. Fighting Terrorism 1:1. A new Discourse on War? 1:2. Richard Rorty and the Ethics of War 2. Etiquettes of Atrocity 2:1. Etiquettes of Atrocity 2:2. Discourses on War 2:3. Keeping the discourse: the United States and Vietnam 2.4. Carl Schmitt and the theory of the Partisan 3. Changing the Discourse 3:1 Germany and the Eastern Front 1941-5 3:2 France and Algeria 1955-8 3:3 Israel and the Intifada 3:4 Conclusion 4. A New Discourse? 4:1. The War on Terror -- (...) Is it a War? 4:2. Excluding Unlawful Combatants 4:3. Network Warfare 4:4. Networked Ethics 5. Grammars of Killing 5:1 Grammars of Killing 5:2 Respecting our enemies 5: 3 Non-Lethal Weapons 6. The Unconditional Imperative 6:1 Jaspers and the Warrior Ethos 6:2 The Micromanagement of the Battlefield 6:3 Corporate Warriors? 6:4 Asimov's Children 7. Back to the Greeks 7:1 Back to the Greeks? 7:2 Simone Weil and The Iliad 7:3 Thucydides and the Melian Dialogue 7:4 What's he to Hecuba? 8 The Heuristics of Fear. (shrink)

Coercion, the act of compelling someone to do something by the use of power, intimidation, or threats, has been deemed a necessary weapon in the public health armamentarium since before public health fell under the remit of physicians and out of the grip of “sanitarians” and civil engineers. This article examines the ethics of detention in the pursuit of public health and uses a contemporary example, detention of poorly compliant individuals with tuberculosis, to highlight the moral dilemmas posed, and examine (...) whether recently proposed approaches are just. In particular I focus upon the public health response to non-infectious individuals who fail to comply with treatment . Our response to them helps clarify contemporary attitudes to recalcitrant, often marginalised, individuals who pose an uncertain threat.Globally tuberculosis control is failing. The World Health Organisation recently called this public health threat a global emergency.1 Transmission occurs through often casual contact from individuals who have pulmonary disease. Although there is much that is uncertain regarding the infectiousness of this ancient disease, we do know that those who are smear-positive, that is who have organisms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis visible in stained respiratory secretions, are considerably more infectious than those who do not.2, 3 Compliance with effective treatment rapidly makes previously infectious patients non-infectious. Standard treatment for fully drug-sensitive tuberculosis usually lasts for six months. Erratic adherence to chemotherapy, however, may result in relapse and the development of drug-resistant disease which is considerably more difficult to treat.In the 1980s and early 1990s New York City witnessed an epidemic of tuberculosis and, of particular concern, a marked increase in drug-resistant and multidrug-resistant strains. In the early 1990s the threat of a virtually untreatable, casually communicable, …. (shrink)

Science has developed technology to the point that computers are networked, “talking” to each other and artificial intelligence is a real possibility in the future. In a parallel development, nanotechnology examines interaction on a subparticle level, too small to be seen. Yet, humankind is lagging in development of social co-operation and communication. Violence is still the “weapon of choice” on a personal level as well as a national level. Two major developments seek to address conflict resolution. On a (...) personal level, Marshall B. Rosenburg’s study of Nonviolent Communication seeks to facilitate individual interaction. And on the macro level, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr’s work in Passive Resistance has had great success in social change without loss of life. This article, in an effort to promote civil discourse asks the questions: How do these two movements relate to each other? Is there a point of connection which may offer a window through which individuals and groups might resolve conflict successfully? (shrink)

This book chapter addresses two questions. First, can targeted killing by drones in non-battlefield zones be justified on basis of just war theory? Second, will the proliferation and expansion of combat drones in warfare, including the introduction of autonomous drones, be an obstacle to initiating or executing wars in a just manner in the future? The first question is answered by applying traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello principles to the American targeted killing campaign in Pakistan; the second (...) question is answered on basis of principles of “just military preparedness” or jus ante bellum, a new category of just war thinking. It is concluded that an international ban on weaponized drones is morally imperative and, certainly, that an international treaty against autonomous lethal weapons should be adopted. (shrink)

Background: The new human coronavirus that leads to COVID-19 has spread rapidly around the world and has a high degree of lethality. In more severe cases, patients remain hospitalized for several days under treatment of the health team. Thus, it is important to develop and use technologies with the aim to strengthen conventional therapy by encouraging movement, physical activity, and improving cardiorespiratory fitness for patients. In this sense, therapies for exposure to virtual reality are promising and have been shown to (...) be an adequate and equivalent alternative to conventional exercise programs.Aim: This is a study protocol with the aim of comparing the conventional physical therapy intervention with the use of a non-immersive VR software during COVID-19 hospitalization.Methods: Fifty patients hospitalized with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 will be divided in two groups under physiotherapy treatment using conventional or VR intervention: Group A: participants with COVID-19 will start the first day of the protocol with VR tasks in the morning and then in the second period, in the afternoon, will perform the conventional exercises and Group B: participants with COVID-19 will start the first day with conventional exercises in the morning and in the second period, in the afternoon, will perform activity with VR. All participants will be evaluated with different motor and physiologic scales before and after the treatment to measure improvements.Conclusion: Considering the importance of benefits from physical activity during hospitalization, VR software shows promise as a potential mechanism for improving physical activity. The results of this study may provide new insights into hospital rehabilitation.Trial Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT04537858. Registered on 01 September 2020. (shrink)

May lethal autonomous weapons systems—‘killer robots ’—be used in war? The majority of writers argue against their use, and those who have argued in favour have done so on a consequentialist basis. We defend the moral permissibility of killer robots, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important argument against killer robots, the responsibility trilemma proposed by Rob Sparrow, makes the same assumptions. We show (...) that the crucial moral question is not one of responsibility. Rather, it is whether the technology can satisfy the requirements of fairness in the re-distribution of risk. Not only is this possible in principle, but some killer robots will actually satisfy these requirements. An implication of our argument is that there is a public responsibility to regulate killer robots ’ design and manufacture. (shrink)

Les langues de bois ne sont pas l’apanage des systèmes autoritaires et totalitaires. Les sociétés démocratiques et ouvertes n’échappent pas, loin s’en faut, au phénomène. Les professionnels de la « com », sous l’influence de processus de civilisations dont le principal effet consiste à produire des sociétés de plus en plus policées, élaborent à la demande de leurs donneurs d’ordre des dispositifs discursifs et des méthodes visant à réduire les risques propres à la communication. Privilégiant une conception instrumentale de la (...) communication, le destin des « communicants » se réduirait-il à transformer leur activité en principale arme contre les valeurs démocratiques et humanistes portées par la communication ? Pour dépasser la com et libérer la communication de toutes les langues de bois qui l’emprisonnent, il convient de transformer les conditions pratiques de l’exercice de ces professionnels en renforçant leur rôle de médiateur.« Doublespeak » in its different forms is by no means the sole preserve of authoritarian or totalitarian regime: open democratic societies are equally afflicted. Professionals in « communication », working under the influence of processes of civilisation whose main effect is to produce increasingly policed societies, receive commissions to develop patterns and methods of discourse whose aim is to minimise the risks inherent to communication itself. In treating communication primarily as an instrument, these « communicators » may well find that their activities are turning into a particularly lethal weapon against the democratic and humanist values that are inherent to communication. To move beyond this subverted form of communication and liberate it from the many forms of doublespeak that have imprisoned it, the practical conditions in which they exercise their profession need to be transformed by reinforcing their role as mediators. (shrink)

At a product demonstration conference in Chicago a few years ago, Taser introduced its latest technological achievement: a remote-controlled robot, developed by the iRobot company of Japan, armed with a Taser. Such a device could save lives on both sides of the law. But it is not the only use of robots replacing humans in dangerous jobs of security and defense. Recently we have seen the first robot soldiers, armed with lethal weapons, entering the battlefield as the US (...) military begins to deploy remote-controlled machinegun- armed robots to patrol dangerous neighborhoods in occupied Iraq. (shrink)

The development of autonomous, robotic weaponry is progressing rapidly. Many observers agree that banning the initiation of lethal activity by autonomous weapons is a worthy goal. Some disagree with this goal, on the grounds that robots may equal and exceed the ethical conduct of human soldiers on the battlefield. Those who seek arms-control agreements limiting the use of military robots face practical difficulties. One such difficulty concerns defining the notion of an autonomous action by a robot. Another (...) challenge concerns how to verify and monitor the capabilities of rapidly changing technologies. In this article we describe concepts from our previous work about autonomy and ethics for robots and apply them to military robots and robot arms control. We conclude with a proposal for a first step toward limiting the deployment of autonomous weapons capable of initiating lethal force. (shrink)

Under the Friday night lights of October 23, 1971, Senn High School battled Kennedy High for football victory. In the third period, to avoid a rush from the Kennedy tacklers, the Senn quarterback scrambled and threw to his halfback, Marco Cervates. Cervates caught the ball, turned and put his head down to run for extra yardage as his teammates and fans cheered. A two hundred-pound linebacker abruptly stopped Cervates' run. Cervates fell to the turf, unconscious. On November 3, 1971, at (...) the age of seventeen, Marco Cervates died.(1). (shrink)

A great deal of attention has been paid by philosophers to the use of computers in the modelling of human cognitive capacities and in the construction of intelligent artifacts. This emphasis has tended to obscure the fact that most of the high-level computing power in science is deployed in what appears to be a much less exciting activity: solving equations. This apparently mundane set of applications reflects the historical origins of modem computing, in the sense that most of the early (...) computers in Britain and the U.S. were devices built to numerically attack mathematical problems that were hard, if not impossible, to solve non-numerically, especially in the areas of ballistics and fluid dynamics. The latter area was especially important for the development of atomic weapons at Los Alamos, and it is still true that a large portion of the supercomputing capacity of the United States is concentrated at weapons development laboratories such as Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. (shrink)

Accountability for developing, deploying, and using any emerging weapons system is affirmed as a guiding principle by the Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. Yet advances in emerging technologies present accountability challenges throughout the life cycle of a weapons system. Mindful of a lack of progress at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons since 2019, this essay argues for a mechanism capable of imputing accountability when individual (...) agent accountability is exceeded, forensic accountability unreliable, and aspects of political accountability fail. (shrink)

The development of new technologies that enable autonomous weapon systems poses a challenge to policymakers and technologists trying to balance military requirements with international obligations and ethical norms. Some have called for new international agreements to restrict or ban lethal autonomous weapon systems. Given the tactical and strategic value of the technologies and the proliferation of threats, the military continues to explore the development of new autonomous technologies to execute national security missions. The rapid global diffusion and (...) dual-use nature of autonomous systems necessitate a proactive approach and a shared understanding of the technical realities, threats, military relevance, and strategic implications of these technologies from these communities. Ultimately, developing AI-enabled defense systems that adhere to global norms and relevant treaty obligations, leverage emerging technologies, and provide operational advantages is possible. The development of a workable and realistic regulatory framework governing the use of lethal autonomous weapons and the artificial intelligence that underpins autonomy will be best supported through a coordinated effort of the regulatory community, technologists, and military to create requirements that reflect the global proliferation and rapidly evolving threat of autonomous weapon systems. This essay seeks to demonstrate that: (1) the lack of coherent dialogue between the technical and policy communities can create security, ethical, and legal dilemmas; and (2) bridging the military, technical, and policy communities can lead to technology with constraints that balance the needs of military, technical, and policy communities. It uses case studies to show why mechanisms are needed to enable early and continuous engagement across the technical, policymaking, and operational communities. The essay then uses twelve interviews with AI and autonomy experts, which provide insight into what the technical and policymaking communities consider fundamental to the progression of responsible autonomous development. It also recommends practical steps for connecting the relevant stakeholders. The goal is to provide the Department of Defense with concrete steps for building organizational structures or processes that create incentives for engagement across communities. (shrink)

Coexistence between livestock grazing and carnivores in rangelands is a major challenge in terms of sustainable agriculture, animal welfare, species conservation and ecosystem function. Many effective non-lethal tools exist to protect livestock from predation, yet their adoption remains limited. Using a social-ecological transformations framework, we present two qualitative models that depict transformative change in rangelands grazing. Developed through participatory processes with stakeholders from South Africa and the United States of America, the models articulate drivers of change and the essential (...) pathways to transition from routine lethal management of carnivores towards mutually beneficial coexistence. The pathways define broad actions that incorporate multiple values in grazing systems including changes to livestock management practices, financial support, industry capacity building, research, improved governance and marketing initiatives. A key finding is the new concept of ‘Predator Smart Farming’, a holistic and conscientious approach to agriculture, which increases the resilience of landscapes, animals and rural livelihoods. Implementation of these multiple pathways would lead to a future system that ensures thriving agricultural communities, secure livelihoods, reduced violence toward animals, and landscapes that are productive and support species conservation and coexistence. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems are here. Technological development will see them become widespread in the near future. This is in a matter of years rather than decades. When the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons meets on 10-14th November 2014, well-considered guidance for a decision on the general policy direction for LAWS is clearly needed. While there is widespread opposition to LAWS—or ‘killer robots’, as they are popularly called—and a growing campaign advocates banning them outright, we argue (...) the opposite. LAWS may very well reduce suffering and death in war. Rather than banning them, they should be regulated, to ensure both compliance with international humanitarian law, and that this positive outcome occurs. This policy memo sets out the basic structure and content of the regulation required. (shrink)