In a new paper published in Digital War, Jutta Weber discusses the dual concerns surrounding AI-based autonomous weapon systems (AWS) and their potential impact on human security. Titled “Autonomous drone swarms and the contested imaginaries of artificial intelligence“, the paper highlights a tension between the understated portrayal by military and industry, which emphasize AWS as precise and trustworthy, and the exaggerated depiction by popular media as conscious, malevolent entities. These contrasting narratives impede a realistic understanding of AWS capabilities. The paper suggests that arms control advocates are raising awareness about the risks of losing meaningful human control over these systems. A recent development cited is the confirmation of autonomous military deployment by a Ukrainian company in October 2023, underscoring the urgency of addressing these issues.

The paper is an outcome of the “Swarm Technologies – Control and Autonomy in Complex Weapons Systems” subproject hosted at Paderborn University. You can read the paper here, open access, in full.