Laws on LAWS

Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), such as drones or autonomous missiles, are no longer a concept of the future.  Some nations—Russia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States—are reported to be going all-in, investing in LAWS and nano-drone swarms, known charmingly as Genocide Swarms. Reports from conflicts in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, and Libya suggest that many LAWS are already finding themselves on the battlefield. Many of these are fully autonomous, excluding humans from any type of decision: search, target acquisition, engagement and execution. As it stands, LAWS would make decisions about life and death by algorithm. The decision of a soldier’s death could be simplified down to a single line of code, a part of an algorithm. Critics raise ethical concerns of deaths by automation and the lack of accountability that goes into a decision made by LAWS.  

The UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) responsible for researching emerging technologies in LAWS has made considerable efforts to manage these lethal systems. In 2019, the group released the eleven regulations for the deployment and development of LAWS. These included notions of accountability, risk mitigation and adherence to humanitarian laws. Moreover, the principles state that the International Humanitarian Law will be applied to LAWS. Numerous countries in the 2022 and 2023 GGE session showed interest in the two-tier approach, remarking that LAWS that can not operate inside International Humanitarian Law should be prohibited, as LAWS need to comply with International Humanitarian Law.

Despite the leading reforms to LAWS, movements to ban LAWs have gained significant momentum. Organizations like Stop Killer Robots and the International Committee of the Red Cross argue that the GGE sessions fall short of any effective legislation that actually binds LAWS. Additionally, the Secretary General of the United Nations and the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross are calling on political leaders to establish more international rules on autonomous weapons. 

In the end, the global debate on LAWS is ever-expanding and amplifying.  Countries within the GGE are starting to implement regulations on LAWS. Moving forward, countries should leverage the momentum to enforce ongoing statutes.

Extemp Analysis by Lindsey Zhao

Q: How should the international community best deal with the emerging threat of LAWS?

AGD: You could probably go for a “robots are taking over the world” type joke, or maybe an account of a soldier or civilian who had an experience with a LAWS. 

Background: Obviously—gotta explain what LAWS are! Make sure to note that there are many different kinds (could be helpful to give a few examples that your audience may have heard of to contextualize the speech). Also, explain the existing ways that the world has tried dealing w/ it, like creating GGEs, listening to global humanitarian nonprofits like Red Cross, and the conflict statement is that nothing concrete has emerged despite the increasing usage of LAWS in conflict zones like Ukraine, Gaza, and Libya. 

Answer: Regulate decision-making process involving LAWS

1. Ensure a human is always involved

   1. no regulation on what “human involved in decision-making” could mean; could be just pressing a button after a series of black box decisions by the AI, or the human operator having a more hands-on involvement in process

   2. the GGE mentioned above should release clearer standards on what is sufficient human involvement for LAWS to be more safely deployed

2. Establish a chain of accountability

   1. No one is held accountable if an autonomous system commits a war crime (after all, it’s autonomous, right?) 

   2. Create a clear hierarchy of who should be punished for LAWS actions; the manufacturers, military leaders, or soldiers operating the system, if any. 

3. regulating LAWS training

   1. like any other AI, LAWS are only as good as the data they’re trained on, meaning they’re still fallible to human bias regarding elements like race or age

   2. to help them make more informed, impartial decisions, should regulate greater transparency regarding the training of LAWS and emphasize diversity in training data

Analysis + Concluding Thoughts

This is pretty clearly a problem-solution substructure (what’s the problem that unregulated LAWs are causing, and how the international community can fix it). Also, it’s a fairly vague question, so it’s often helpful to make your umbrella answer as narrow as possible so you can add more detail in each of your points. I outlined the general idea of each point above, but it would be most effective if you could work in an example or two in the a) subpoint and an example of when the solution worked/specific group that the international community should appeal to.

Read more here:

• Brian Stauffer, Human Rights Watch

• Charukeshi Bhatt and Tejas Bharadwaj, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace