Can we retain some form of human control?
(Newswire.net — November 27, 2019) — Dozens of countries are reiterating the call to negotiate “The urgent need for a treaty to retain meaningful human control over the use of force,” including 30 states seeking to fully ban autonomous weapons, also known as the deadly autonomous weapons system.
Human Rights Watch advocacy director Mary Wareham believes that the use of autonomous weapons today has become “one of the most persistent threats to humanity”, condemning leading countries for failing to take adequate measures to address the rising problem.
Ms. Wareham has issued a warning that killer robots could potentially wipe out parts of the human population with “unacceptable attacks.”
Pointing out the risks of using AI on the battlefield, the HRV’s advocacy director wrote in an open letter published by the HRV stressing that major military forces are racing to accept weapons that select and fire at targets without meaningful human control.
Ms. Wareham stressed that many countries have begun to raise issues over these weapons systems, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a new international treaty banning robotic fighters at the annual meeting of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCV) in mid-November, stating that “Machines that have the power and discretion to kill without human intervention are politically unacceptable and morally despicable.”
The Campaign to Stop Robot Killers has called for a global treaty banning the use of fully autonomous weapons.
Mary Wareham regretted that no progress had been made at the CCV meeting in Geneva in launching a treaty to ban or restrict fully autonomous weapons.
Instead, states agreed to spend the next two years developing a “normative and operational framework” to address the problems posed by such weapons systems.
“This vague goal is far less than what is needed. The only appropriate answer is to launch negotiations to ban killer robots,” the expert insists. According to Wareham, the public is increasingly supporting such a ban. Nearly three in four people who responded to a new poll in 10 European countries want their governments to work on an international treaty banning deadly autonomous weapons systems, Human Rights Watch reported earlier in November.
The poll showed that more than 70 per cent of respondents want European countries to take measures to ban weapons systems that could select and attack targets without meaningful human control.
For example, in the Netherlands, 80 per cent of respondents advocated that the Dutch government should support such a ban. The survey, conducted in October, included respondents from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.