HRW report sounds warning against ‘killer robots’

Human rights advocates have called on countries to prohibit the development and use of fully autonomous weapons, or so-called “killer robots,” in report published Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic.

The authors of the 38-page report, titled "Mind the Gap: The Lack of Accountability for Killer Robots," said that the use of autonomous weapons raises “serious moral and legal concerns because they would possess the ability to select and engage their targets without meaningful human control.”

While noting that “fully autonomous weapons do not yet exist,” the report said that “technology is moving in their direction.” HRW pointed to what it called “precursors” already being used or developed, namely the Iron Dome system in Israel or Phalanx and C-RAM used by the U.S. “that are programmed to respond automatically to threats from incoming munitions.”

“Killer robots,” the report warns, would lack certain human traits, such as “judgment, compassion and intentionality.” Furthermore, HRW says that “fully autonomous weapons themselves cannot substitute for responsible humans as defendants in any legal proceeding that seeks to achieve deterrence and retribution.”

Highlighting legal difficulties that could be presented by killer robots, HRW cites “immunity for the U.S. military and its defense contractors,” which the rights group says present an “almost insurmountable hurdle to civil accountability.” 

“The military is immune from lawsuits related to: (1) its policy determinations, which would likely include a choice of weapons, (2) the wartime combat activities of military forces, and (3) acts committed in a foreign country,” the report said. “Manufacturers contracted by the military are similarly immune from suit when they design a weapon in accordance with government specifications and without deliberately misleading the military.”

“A fully autonomous weapon could commit acts that would rise to the level of war crimes if a person carried them out, but victims would see no one punished for these crimes,” said Bonnie Docherty, senior Arms Division researcher at Human Rights Watch and the report’s lead author.

“The lack of accountability adds to the legal, moral and technological case against fully autonomous weapons and bolsters the call for a preemptive ban,” Docherty added.

The release of the report comes ahead of a multilateral meeting on lethal autonomous weapons systems at the United Nations office in Geneva, scheduled for next week. HRW recommends that countries “adopt national laws and policies that prohibit the development, production and use of fully autonomous weapons.”