Friday 17th December 2021
Drones and missiles with AI
States do not ostracize “killer robots”
According to the coalition agreement, the new federal government is striving for the international outlawing of lethal weapon systems that have been detached from humans. More than a hundred countries meet in Geneva to discuss this. In the end there is a compromise that plays into the hands of countries with large arms manufacturers.
The struggle for clear barriers to autonomous weapon systems – so-called killer robots – will continue next year. Despite opposition from Russia and other countries, it was not possible in Geneva to issue a mandate for negotiations on a treaty or any other legally binding instrument. The discussions were conducted by the 125 states party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). You can only decide unanimously.
They simply decided to let the expert working group that was set up in 2014 continue to work. There is no specific goal for the talks. “This result is of course a compromise that cannot completely satisfy everyone, including us,” said German disarmament ambassador Thomas Göbel. “We see the decision as a mandate to the government group of experts to agree on specific measures for dealing with such weapon systems in the next year.”
Dozens of countries want autonomous weapons to be banned. This is about systems – rockets or drones, for example – that are not decisively controlled by human hands and, with the help of artificial intelligence, learn to set their sights on and attack their own targets. But a meeting in Geneva in 2019 ended sobering. Countries with large arms manufacturers are against barriers, including Russia, the USA and Israel. According to the coalition agreement, the new federal government is striving for a binding international ban on lethal weapon systems that have been detached from humans.
The “Stop Killer Robots” coalition was shocked. The hope of moving forward within the CCW has faded. It all boils down to starting a separate ban process. Activists had successfully done something like this with landmines and cluster munitions. Today they are practically outlawed all over the world. Diplomats warn that it would be of little use if dozens of countries banned autonomous weapons that did not manufacture any themselves. As long as countries that are working on it are not there, that will be of little use.