Reining in Autonomous Weapons
December 16, 2021
Nations pushing to regulate or ban lethal autonomous weapons that use artificial intelligence and operate without meaningful human control are meeting this week, in the face of continuing setbacks. In Issues, Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni examine this matter as part of a broader look at when and how to regulate AI and other smart technologies. Regarding autonomous weapons, the authors propose adopting a tiered decisionmaking system that pairs conventional practices with new AI oversight tools. These “AI Guardians” would prevent the weapons from acting in ways that violate accepted safety parameters, such as relying on single-source information or targeting schools.