By Jake Johnson
December 03, 202:
Information Clearing House
- The Biden administration
on Thursday rejected demands for a binding
international agreement banning or tightly
regulating the use of so-called killer robots,
autonomous weapons that campaigners fear will make
war more deadly and entrench a global norm of
“digital dehumanization.”
During a meeting in Geneva, State Department
official Josh Dorosin said the U.S. prefers “the
development of a non-binding code of conduct” on
Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), which have
already
been used in conflicts to track and kill without
a human operator.
While
dozens of countries — most recently
New Zealand — have expressed support for a
global ban on the use of autonomous weapons systems,
the U.S. has been a major obstacle to progress for
years. On Thursday, Dorosin reiterated U.S.
opposition to prohibiting killer robots through a
“legally-binding instrument.”
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John Tasioulas, director of the Institute for
Ethics in AI,
called the Biden administration’s position “sad
but unsurprising.”
New Zealand, for its part, announced Tuesday that
it would join the international coalition demanding
a ban on LAWS, declaring that “the prospect of a
future where the decision to take a human life is
delegated to machines is abhorrent.”
“This is an issue with significant implications
for global peace and security, and I’m optimistic
New Zealand, alongside the international community,
is well placed to push for action,”
said Phil Twyford, New Zealand’s minister of
disarmament and arms control.
Clare Conboy of the Stop Killer Robots
coalition applauded New Zealand’s stand as “a
powerful demonstration of political and moral
leadership.”
“We look forward to supporting the government of
New Zealand in their work to establish new law and
to further build upon their proud history of leading
international disarmament efforts and centering
human rights, peace, and disarmament in their
foreign policy,” she added.
In a
report issued ahead of the latest round of
United Nations talks, Human Rights Watch and the
Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic
warned that “it would be difficult for fully
autonomous weapons systems, which would select and
engage targets without meaningful human control, to
distinguish between combatants and non-combatants as
required under international humanitarian law.”
“The emergence of autonomous weapons systems and
the prospect of losing meaningful human control over
the use of force,” the report states, “are grave
threats that demand urgent action.”
Bonnie Docherty, senior arms researcher at Human
Rights Watch, said Wednesday that “much opposition
to killer robots reflects moral repulsion to the
idea of machines making life-and-death decisions.”
“A new treaty would fill the gap in international
treaty law and protect the principles of humanity
and dictates of public conscience in the face of
emerging weapons technology,” Docherty argued.
Jake Johnson is a staff writer for
Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter:
@johnsonjakep.
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