Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and communications will change the way countries and non-state actors wage war.

War as a Sovereign Right

Few states have renounced to the sovereign right to wage war or to use war to settle international disputes (e.g., Japan, art. 9 of its Constitution), or have done away with standing armies (e.g., Costa Rica and Iceland), and no state has renounced the right to self-defence.

Laws of War

How war is waged among nearly all states is subject to at least some of the laws of war embodied in treaties and conventions, the most famous being the Geneva Conventions (1949), to which 196 states are signatories. By comparison, the United Nations has 193 member states.

In addition to the Geneva Conventions, there are treaties dealing with the production, sale or use of weapons or components thereof. Examples include the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968), Biological Weapons Convention (1972), Convention on Conventional Weapons (1993), and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (1999), also known as the Ottawa Treaty.

In a nutshell, states have sought to regulate not only how war is waged but also which weapons are used in conflicts. Weapons most likely to produce catastrophic, disproportionate or indiscriminate damage have so far been the subject of most restrictions.

Robots, AI and War

Robots and AI have countless potential military applications. Among other military advantages, they have the ability to provide deterrence at a much lower cost by using fewer soldiers. In most armies, the human element is the most expensive military component. More machines should mean fewer soldiers. Moreover, the need for equipment to protect their crew greatly adds to the design and construction costs of weapon systems. For example, air, land or sea drones can be made smaller and cheaper than manned aircraft, tanks and ships.

But, in military matters, it is less the robots than the AI used to operate them that is causing concern.

Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu, the United Nations top Disarmament (UNADO) official, continues to warn that governments must be careful of the “dark side” of AI and especially of “Killer-Robots,” or Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs), i.e., machines that can identify and destroy preselected targets without any human intervention or oversight.

War without humans at the trigger opens the door to considerable risks, although some experts argue that LAWs, if properly programmed, might be more effective at following the rules of war than humans experiencing all of the stresses and trauma of the battlefield.

While some countries are actively promoting the negotiation and drafting of an international treaty on AI and LAWs, most are satisfied to wait and see, particularly as any treaty would require ratification by both the US and China in order to be impactful.

In fact, AI and LAWs have the potential to spark a new arms race not seen since the post-World War II period, when the US and the Soviet Union were adding to their nuclear and conventional arsenals.

This is the fourth of a series on robots for this blog. Throughout 2021, I will continue to examine risks posed by the introduction of robots into the economy, and attempt to propose solutions to mitigate negative consequences.