What do you understand by the term Lethal Autonomous Weapon System (LAWS)? Why are the international scientific communities against this?
IAS Parliament 8 years
KEY POINTS
LAWS
· These are weapons deployed without human interventionsusing Artificial intelligence.
· It will include anything from infantry-replacing machines to smart missile defence shields.
· Also termed as the Killer Robots.
· It will operate in the air, on land, on water, under water, or in space.
Arguments against LAWS
· Moral crisis – LAWS places the decision to kill, in the hands of machines.
· It is hard to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants by a machine, thus violating the sanctity of human life.
· Compliance – The conduct of war today is governed by a host of International treaties, the compliance of which is often a subjective undertaking.
· Machines operating on pre-programmed codes and using objective criteria to make battlefield decisions, would not be able to comply in any substantial manner with these treaties.
· Question of Liability –Currently, in case of any violations of International treaties, individual soldiers or their commanders can be held responsible for their actions.
· When an autonomous machine commits a war crime, who will take the responsibility remains a major question unanswered.
· It will scale up the incidence of number of wars, as there is no involvement of humans in the battle field.
· It would encourage weapon race among nations, if not regulated.
Suggestions
· India should push International community for some form of regulations with emphasis on
· Clearly defining, when a weapon is said to be an autonomoussystem.
· Circumstances governing use of LAWS.
· Prohibition of sale of autonomous weapon technology to non-State actors.
