One of the challenges is that we often talk about these systems as if they would exist in a vacuum.

We have to recognize that, at the end of the day, it is ultimately states that will be deploying these systems for specific military and strategic purposes. And we have to consider that, in the absence of an international agreement, there is very little guidance from existing regulations and norms to ensure that there is human oversight over these systems and that, ultimately, someone can be held accountable. At the moment, no one can be held accountable for actions that are carried out by an autonomous system.

What we see currently is not the fact that we don’t have the technology to protect civilians. In fact, what we see is a lack of care in the use of different systems. And so, when we talk about the advantages of autonomous systems, there’s often the discussion of more precise weaponry. But we have a lot of precise weaponry now that is used imprecisely, and it doesn’t solve the issue also of whether an attack was legal in the first place. So, even if you have greater technology, there are considerations, such as is this a legitimate target, that needs to be, I think, really thought about by a human analyst.

We need to be quite cognizant of what the technology can do and what it can’t — and where is the value in human judgment is, I think, a really important consideration for, you know, from a strategic perspective and a humanitarian perspective.