Author: mattgold

As part of the conference “Diffracting the Critical” (STS-HUB 2025), which will take place from 11.3 – 14.3.2025 at the HU Berlin, Stephanie Schmidt (University Hamburg) and Jens Hälterlein (Paderborn University) are organising the panel “Diffracting Algorithmic Warfare” (11.3.25, 13:00 – 14:30, Room 1.404).

Ishmael Bhila (Paderborn University), Sofie van der Maarel (Radboud University Nijmegen), Denisa Butnaru (University of Konstanz), Jutta Weber (Paderborn University) and the two organisers will give presentations as part of the panel.

Further information on the conference and the panel:

https://sts-hub.de/25

We are happy to announce the publication of the report of our conference together with the Disruption Network Lab in Berlin from the 29th of November to the 1st of December 2024. The paper reports on the discussions and presentations at the conference and maps out directions for critical research on algorithmic warfare, showing how the kill cloud impacts the victims of algorithms of violence. The publication is accessible open access at https://doi.org/10.1057/s42984-025-00101-x .

Following the “Investigating the Kill Cloud” Conference organised by the Disruption Network Lab and MEHUCO’s subproject “Swarm Technologies – Control and Autonomy in Complex Weapons Systems,” Jennifer Meninger from the German Stop Killer Robots Campaign and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILF), together with Ishmael Bhila from Paderborn University and the Stop Killer Robots Campaign published a blog piece reporting on the conference. Published by the Stop Killer Robots Campaign, a global coalition of more than 250 organisations, the article summarises the outcome of the conference while also mapping prospects for the regulation of autonomous weapons systems, avenues for multisectoral collaboration, and action-oriented work against the dehumanising effects of algorithmic warfare.

The full article can be found here.

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.

Ishmael Bhila, who was a research fellow at Paderborn University looking at Global South conceptualisation of Meaningful Human Control, accountability and responsibility, has published a paper on the diplomatic challenges and opportunities of small states from the Global South in the discussions on autonomous weapons systems (AWS). Bhila discusses the significant threats that autonomous weapons systems pose to small states, especially in the Global South. Despite these threats, these states find it difficult to participate in international discussions about regulating these weapons, which have been ongoing since 2017 under the United Nations framework. The paper examines the challenges diplomats from these countries face, such as limited resources, expertise, and the complexities of international politics and legal systems. Despite these difficulties, the paper argues, these diplomats strive to address these issues and decolonize the diplomatic spaces they operate within.

The paper can be found here open access.