Great report! Looking forward to digging into it more.
It definitely makes sense to focus on (major) states. However a different intervention I don’t think I saw in the piece is about targeting the private sector—those actually developing the tech. E.g. Reprogramming war by Pax for Peace, a Dutch NGO. They describe the project as follows:
“This is part of the PAX project aimed at dissuading the private sector from contributing to the development of lethal autonomous weapons. These weapons pose a serious threat to international peace and security, and would violate fundamental legal and ethical principles. PAX aims to engage with the private sector to help prevent lethal autonomous weapons from becoming a reality. In a series of four reports we look into which actors could potentially be involved in the development of these weapons. Each report looks at a different group of actors, namely states, the tech sector, universities & research institutes, and arms producers. This project is aimed at creating awareness in the private sector about the concerns related to lethal autonomous weapons, and at working with private sector actors to develop guidelines and regulations to ensure their work does not contribute to the development of these weapons.”
It follows fairly successful investor campaigns on e.g. cluster munitions. This project could form the basis for shareholder activism or divestment by investors, and/or wider activism by the AI community by students, researchers, employees, etc—building on eg FLI’s “we won’t work on LAWS” pledge.
I’d be interested in your views on that kind of approach.
That’s a great point. I think you’re right — I should have dug a bit deeper on how the private sector fits into this.
I think cyber is an example where the private sector has really helped to lead — like Microsoft’s involvement at the UN debates, the Paris Call, the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, and others — and maybe that’s an example of how industry stakeholders can be engaged.
I also think that TEVV-related norms and confidence building measures would probably involve leading companies.
I still broadly thinking that states are the lever to target at this stage in the problem, given that they would be (or are) driving demand. I am also always a little unsure about using cluster munitions as an example of success — both because I think autonomous weapons are just a different beast in terms of military utility, and of course because of the breaches (including recently).
Thank you again for pointing out that hole in the report!
I don’t think its a hole at all, I think its quite reasonable to focus on major states. The private sector approach is a different one with a whole different set of actors/interventions/literature—completely makes sense that its outside the scope of this report. I was just doing classic whatabouterism, wondering about your take on a related but seperate approach.
Btw I completely agree with you about cluster munitions.
The cluster munitions divestment example seems plausibly somewhat more successful in the West, but not elsewhere (e.g. the companies that remain on the “Hall of Shame” list). I’d expect something similar here if the pressure against LAWs were narrow (e.g. against particular types with low strategic value). Decreased demand does seem more relevant than decreased investment though.
If LAWs are stigmatized entirely, and countries like the U.S. don’t see a way to tech their way out to sustain advantage, then you might not get the same degree of influence in the first place since demand remains.
I find it interesting that the U.S. wouldn’t sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but also doesn’t seem to be buying or selling any more. One implication might be that the stigma disincentivizes change/tech progress: since more discriminant cluster munitions would be stigmatized as well. I presume this reduces the number of such weapons, but increases the risk of collateral damage per weapon by slowing the removal of older, more indiscriminate/failure prone weapons from arsenals.
While in principle, you could drive down the civilian harm with new smaller bomblets that reliably deactivate themselves if they don’t find a military target, as far as I can tell, to the degree that the U.S. is replacing cluster bombs, it is just doing so with big indiscriminate bombs (BLU 136/BLU134) that will just shower a large target area with fragments.
Great report! Looking forward to digging into it more.
It definitely makes sense to focus on (major) states. However a different intervention I don’t think I saw in the piece is about targeting the private sector—those actually developing the tech. E.g. Reprogramming war by Pax for Peace, a Dutch NGO. They describe the project as follows:
It follows fairly successful investor campaigns on e.g. cluster munitions. This project could form the basis for shareholder activism or divestment by investors, and/or wider activism by the AI community by students, researchers, employees, etc—building on eg FLI’s “we won’t work on LAWS” pledge.
I’d be interested in your views on that kind of approach.
Hi Haydn,
That’s a great point. I think you’re right — I should have dug a bit deeper on how the private sector fits into this.
I think cyber is an example where the private sector has really helped to lead — like Microsoft’s involvement at the UN debates, the Paris Call, the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, and others — and maybe that’s an example of how industry stakeholders can be engaged.
I also think that TEVV-related norms and confidence building measures would probably involve leading companies.
I still broadly thinking that states are the lever to target at this stage in the problem, given that they would be (or are) driving demand. I am also always a little unsure about using cluster munitions as an example of success — both because I think autonomous weapons are just a different beast in terms of military utility, and of course because of the breaches (including recently).
Thank you again for pointing out that hole in the report!
I don’t think its a hole at all, I think its quite reasonable to focus on major states. The private sector approach is a different one with a whole different set of actors/interventions/literature—completely makes sense that its outside the scope of this report. I was just doing classic whatabouterism, wondering about your take on a related but seperate approach.
Btw I completely agree with you about cluster munitions.
The cluster munitions divestment example seems plausibly somewhat more successful in the West, but not elsewhere (e.g. the companies that remain on the “Hall of Shame” list). I’d expect something similar here if the pressure against LAWs were narrow (e.g. against particular types with low strategic value). Decreased demand does seem more relevant than decreased investment though.
If LAWs are stigmatized entirely, and countries like the U.S. don’t see a way to tech their way out to sustain advantage, then you might not get the same degree of influence in the first place since demand remains.
I find it interesting that the U.S. wouldn’t sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but also doesn’t seem to be buying or selling any more. One implication might be that the stigma disincentivizes change/tech progress: since more discriminant cluster munitions would be stigmatized as well. I presume this reduces the number of such weapons, but increases the risk of collateral damage per weapon by slowing the removal of older, more indiscriminate/failure prone weapons from arsenals.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/09/02/why-the-last-u-s-company-making-cluster-bombs-wont-produce-them-anymore/
While in principle, you could drive down the civilian harm with new smaller bomblets that reliably deactivate themselves if they don’t find a military target, as far as I can tell, to the degree that the U.S. is replacing cluster bombs, it is just doing so with big indiscriminate bombs (BLU 136/BLU134) that will just shower a large target area with fragments.