Lords AI weapons committee holds first evidence session

Precision weapons debate

Lubell noted a similar debate has played out over the past decade in relation to the use of “precision weapons” like drones – the use of which was massively expanded under the Obama administration.

“You can see that on the one hand, there’s an argument being made: ‘There’ll be less collateral damage, so it’s better to use them’. But at the same time, one could also argue that has led to carrying out military strikes in situations where previously it would have been unlawful because there would be too much collateral damage,” he said.

“Now you carry out a strike because you feel you’ve got a precision weapon, and there is some collateral damage, albeit lawful, but had you not had that weapon, you wouldn’t have carried out the strike at all.”

Speaking with Computer Weekly about the ethics of military AI, professor of political theory and author of  Death machines: The ethics of violent technologies Elke Schwarz made a similar point, pointing out that over a decade’s worth of drone warfare has shown that more ‘precision’ does not necessarily lead to fewer civilian casualties, as the convenience enabled by the technology actually lowers the threshold of resorting to force. 

“We have these weapons that allow us great distance, and with distance comes risk-lessness for one party, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into less risk for others – only if you use them in a way that is very pinpointed, which never happens in warfare,” she said, adding the effects of this are clear: “Some lives have been spared and others not.”

On the precision arguments, Hinds noted that while AWS’ are often equated with being more accurate, the opposite is true in the ICRC’s view.  

“The use of an autonomous weapon, by its definition, reduces precision because the user actually isn’t choosing a specific target – they’re launching a weapon that’s designed to be triggered based on a generalised target profile, or a category of object,” she said.

“I think the reference to precision hear generally relates to the ability to better hone in on a target and maybe to use a smaller payload, but that isn’t tied specifically to the autonomous function of the weapons.”

Human accountability

Lubell said, in response to a Lords question about whether it would ever be appropriate to “delegate” decision-making responsibility to a military AI system, that we are not talking about Terminator-style scenario where an AI sets its own tasks and goes about achieving them, and warned against anthropomorphising language.

“The systems that we’re talking about don’t decide, in that sense. We’re using human language for a tool – it executes a function but it doesn’t make a decision in that sense. I’m personally not comfortable with the idea that we’re even delegating anything to it,” he said.

“This is a tool just like any other tool, all weapons are tools, we’re using a tool…there are solutions to the accountability problem that are based on understanding that these are tools rather than agents.”

Murray said he would also be very hesitant to use the word ‘delegate’ in this context: “I think we have to remember that humans set the parameters for deployment. So I think the tool analogy is a really important one.”

Hinds also added that IHL assessments, particularly those around balancing proportionality with the anticipated military advantage, very much rely on value-judgement and context-specific considerations.

“When you recognise someone is surrendering, when you have to calculate proportionality, it’s not a numbers game. It’s about what is the military advantage anticipated,” she said.

“Algorithms are not good at evaluating context, they’re not good at rapidly changing circumstances, and they can be quite brittle. I think in those circumstances, I would really query how we’re saying that there would be a better outcome for IHL compliance, when you’re trying to codify qualitative assessments into quantitative code that doesn’t respond well to these elements.”

Ultimately, she said IHL is about “processes, not results”, and that “human judgement” can never be outsourced.

AI for general military operations

All witnesses agreed that narrowly looking at the role of AI in weapons systems would fail to fully account for the other ways in which AI could be deployed militarily and contribute to use of lethal force, and said they were particularly concerned about the use of AI for intelligence and decision-making purpsoes.

“I wouldn’t limit it to weapons,” said Lubell. “Artificial intelligence can play a critical role in who or what ends up being targeted, even outside of a particular weapon.”

Lubell added he is just as concerned, if not more, about the use of AI in the early intelligence analysis stages of military operations, and how it will affect decision-making.

Giving the example of AI in law enforcement, which has been shown to further entrench existing patterns of discrimination in the criminal justice system due to the use of historically biased policing data, Lubell said he is concerned “those problems repeating themselves when we’re using AI in the earlier intelligence analysis stages [of military planning]”.

The Lords present at the session took this on board and said that they would expand the scope of their inquiry to look at the use of AI throughout the military, and not just in weapon systems specifically.