Author: mattgold

We are delighted to announce that the conference “Imaginations of Autonomy – On Humans, AI-Based Weapon Systems and Responsibility at Machine Speed” will take place from Wednesday 22nd to Friday 24th May 2024 at Paderborn University, Germany.

A brief description of the conference follows below.

 Autonomous Weapon Systems(AWS) exhibit a high degree of automation. The movement of vehicles and the identification, selection and killing of targets are claimed as processes that machines can perform ‘autonomously’ or even ‘responsibly’ without human intervention. However, AWS depend on (human-made) material, technical and organizational infrastructures including big data and ‘self-learning’, opaque machine learning algorithms. As complex human/machine configurations, AWS exhibit agency beyond the clear-cut realms of machines and humans – though responsibility can only stay with humans.                                                                                                                                                            

From this perspective, the claim of responsible AI as well as the autonomy of weapon systems can be seen as an epistemo-technoscientific as well as politically-driven imagination. However, this imagined autonomy has very real effects. It renews and strengthens promises of ‘fighting at machine speed’, and performing ‘precision strikes’. These technoscientific promises are articulated by politicians and the military; they drive hegemonic global politics and devalue discourses of and investments in diplomacy, conflict management and peace research. They legitimize arms contracts and trade as well as military research and development. Problematic effects of high automation such as automation bias, opaqueness of the systems and susceptibility to error are often overseen, underestimated or even made invisible.                                                                                                             

Against this background, the first conference of the competence network Meaningful Human Control – Autonomous Weapon System between Regulation and Reflexion, led by Paderborn University and situated at five universities, aims to develop new approaches to understanding military human/machine configurations and their distributed, situational agency. Thereby, we aim to foster interdisciplinary dialogue, include non-Western positions more strongly in the debate and expand the scope with artistic perspectives and a robotic performance.

The interdisciplinary project “Meaningful Human Control – Autonomous Weapon Systems between Regulation and Reflection” invites interested researchers from the Global South to apply for a one-month fellowship in the subproject “Swarm Technologies. Control and Autonomy in Complex Weapon Systems” at Paderborn University.

The fellowship is renumerated with 5000 Euros and includes a research stay in May 2024 as well as participation in an international conference on Autonomous Weapon Systems from May 22-24, 2024 at the Paderborn University. The application deadline is August 21, 2023.

The interdisciplinary project “Meaningful Human Control – Autonomous Weapon Systems between Regulation and Reflection” invites applicants from the Global South to take up a one-month fellowship position in the sub-project “Cooperative Decision-making vs. Individual Responsibility” at Leibniz University Hannover.

The aim of the sub-project is to analyze the meaning of technical implementation, the illusion of one’s own agency with Meaningful Human Control, the concept of responsibility, and the associated social functions from the perspective of (international) criminal law.

The fellowship position includes a stay in Germany from the end of April to the end of May 2024, as well as participation in an international conference on Autonomous Weapon Systems from May 22 to 24, 2024, at the University of Paderborn.

The application deadline is May 15, 2023.

The recent publication of the article „Unfall, Interface und Lagebild. Der Abschuss von Iran-Air Flug 655 im Kontext der Debatte um autonome Waffensysteme“ by Christoph Ernst in the journal „Navigationen – Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften“ is one of the first publications of a member of our project consortium.

The article can be accessed via Open-Access under: https://dspace.ub.uni-siegen.de/handle/ubsi/2285

Bibliographic information:

Ernst, Christoph (2022): »Unfall, Interface und Lagebild. Der Abschuss von Iran-Air Flug 655 im Kontext der Debatte um autonome Waffensysteme«. In: Unfälle. Kultur und Medien der Akzidenz (= Navigationen. Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften 22, 2). Ed. Dominik Maeder, Siegen: Universi, p. 25-43.

In an open letter, six robotics companies turned to the robotics industry and society at large to speak out against weaponizing robots. The robotics companies „Boston Dynamics“, „Anybotics“, „Agility Robotics“, „Clearpath Robotics“, „Open Robotics“ and „Unitree“ pledged not to weaponize their robots nor to utilize their own developed systems for such purposes. They will also not support others to do so. The companies are of the opinion that the use of weaponized robots raises new risks and serious ethical questions that could harm public trust in the technology. This is why the signatories of the open letter call on policy makers to promote safe use of robots and to prohibit their misuse. They further call on organisations, developers, researchers and users to make similar pledges and neither build attached weapons on robots nor to allow, support or enable their attachment.

Link to the open letter: www.bostondynamics.com/open-letter-opposing-weaponization-general-purpose-robots
as well as the statement of StopKillerRobots: www.stopkillerrobots.org/news/robotics-industry-takes-a-stand/