Regulation and Prohibition of Autonomous Weapons Systems: A Future Outside the CCW?
On 21 October 2022, Austria, on behalf of 70 states, delivered a joint statement on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) at the 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), during a debate on conventional weapons. Among others, the document mentions that these states recognise the importance of focusing efforts in particular on elaborating the normative and […]
AutoNorms at the UN GGE on LAWS
In 2021-2022, the AutoNorms team participated in three meetings of the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). The GGE meetings take place in Geneva and bring together delegations of state parties to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), as well […]
The UK Defence AI Strategy: Situating Global Britain in the ‘AI Race’?
On 15 June 2022, the UK Government released its new Defence AI Strategy, outlining its plans to further integrate artificial intelligence into its Armed Forces. The strategy includes objectives such as making the Ministry of Defence (MOD) an “AI ready” organisation, exploiting AI “at [a] pace and scale for Defence advantage”, strengthening the UK’s defence […]
Can Track II Dialogues be the New “Ping-Pong” Diplomacy to Thaw the Sino-US Relationship on Military AI?
China and the US find themselves increasingly enmeshed in a deteriorating relationship as the two countries contest for primacy across many fields. Both Beijing and Washington view technological leadership, especially an edge in artificial intelligence (AI), as vital to gaining an upper-hand in this intensified power contest. As the two rivals scale up investment in […]
AI and Drones in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Challenging the Expectations?
By Ingvild Bode and Anna Nadibaidze Military applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and their impacts on warfare have received much attention over the past years. Russia has been portrayed as a central actor in these debates, not least since President Vladimir Putin declared that whoever leads in the field of AI “will become ruler of […]
The New Fog of War: Algorithms, Computer Vision, and Weapon Systems
War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth. — Carl von Clausewitz (1832) [1873] The visual dimension is one of […]
AI and Robots in Soviet and Russian Popular Culture
In this article, Anna Nadibaidze explores the artificial intelligence narratives in Soviet and Russian popular culture.
The Future of the GGE and Denmark’s Silence in the Debate about Autonomous Weapons Systems
On 17 December 2021, after eight years of (both informal and formal) discussions about the challenges raised by autonomous weapons systems (AWS), states parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) decided on a mandate that dissatisfied many. The Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on LAWS should meet for 10 days in 2022 to […]
The Algorithmic Turn in Security and Warfare
On 6 – 7 January 2022, the AutoNorms project and the Center for War Studies (CWS) held the virtual conference “The Algorithmic Turn in Security and Warfare”. Functional applications of artificial intelligence (AI) based upon machine learning algorithms are in the process of fundamentally reshaping a diverse range of social, business, legal, and political fields. […]
Shortening the Kill Chain with Artificial Intelligence
This post has been guest written by Jennifer Rooke. Jennifer’s author information has been included at the end of this post. In a speech at the Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyberspace Conference held on 20 September 2021, US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall stated (at 20:50 in the embedded video) […]
