Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Contextual Nature of Hors de Combat Status
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Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin, 10124 Turin, Italy
2
Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent, Belgium
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Luis Martínez López
Information 2021, 12(5), 216; https://doi.org/10.3390/info12050216
Received: 18 March 2021
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Revised: 17 May 2021
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Accepted: 18 May 2021
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Published: 20 May 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Meaningful Human Control and Autonomous Weapons Systems: Ethics, Design, and Responsible Innovation)
Autonomous weapons systems (AWS), sometimes referred to as “killer robots”, are receiving ever more attention, both in public discourse as well as by scholars and policymakers. Much of this interest is connected to emerging ethical and legal problems linked to increasing autonomy in weapons systems, but there is a general underappreciation for the ways in which existing law might impact on these new technologies. In this paper, we argue that as AWS become more sophisticated and increasingly more capable than flesh-and-blood soldiers, it will increasingly be the case that such soldiers are “in the power” of those AWS which fight against them. This implies that such soldiers ought to be considered hors de combat, and not targeted. In arguing for this point, we draw out a broader conclusion regarding hors de combat status, namely that it must be viewed contextually, with close reference to the capabilities of combatants on both sides of any discreet engagement. Given this point, and the fact that AWS may come in many shapes and sizes, and can be made for many different missions, we argue that each particular AWS will likely need its own standard for when enemy soldiers are deemed hors de combat. We conclude by examining how these nuanced views of hors de combat status might impact on meaningful human control of AWS.
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Keywords:
autonomous weapons; meaningful human control; hors de combat status; killer robots; military ethics
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
MDPI and ACS Style
Umbrello, S.; Wood, N.G. Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Contextual Nature of Hors de Combat Status. Information 2021, 12, 216. https://doi.org/10.3390/info12050216
AMA Style
Umbrello S, Wood NG. Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Contextual Nature of Hors de Combat Status. Information. 2021; 12(5):216. https://doi.org/10.3390/info12050216
Chicago/Turabian StyleUmbrello, Steven, and Nathan Gabriel Wood. 2021. "Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Contextual Nature of Hors de Combat Status" Information 12, no. 5: 216. https://doi.org/10.3390/info12050216
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