Abstract
Proposals by the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) to use bomb disposal robots for deadly force against humans have met with widespread condemnation. Media coverage of the furore has tended, incorrectly, to conflate these robots with autonomous weapon systems (AWS), the AI-based weapons used in armed conflict. These two types of systems should be treated as distinct since they have different sets of social, ethical, and legal implications. However, the conflation does raise a pressing question: what if the SFPD had proposed using AWS for law enforcement purposes? This article argues that current debate on AWS takes place within a ‘killing paradigm’ that leaves us ill-placed to understand the implications of using autonomous force outside of armed conflict. This is because ‘lethality’ is taken as the paradigmatic form of harm, meaning that other harms are understood in a way that is derivative of lethal harm. The article calls for more research on how other sorts of goods, such as freedom from domination, are imperilled by the use of autonomous force. The article also suggests that bringing research on AWS into dialogue with the sorts of concerns that have typically motivated political theory—e.g. power, coercion, the state—provides a fruitful starting point for addressing these issues.
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Notes
The legislature initially voted to accept the proposals in late November, before a second vote in early December saw it rejected. The proposal is under review at time of writing.
Wired reports that the SFPD proposals included robots that “use lethal force without human intervention” (emphasis added). However, there does not appear to be any evidence for this. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/san-francisco-police-killer-robots-ban.
The idea of a ‘killing paradigm’ is from (Finlay, 2020).
Sometimes called ‘less-lethal force’. The difficulty in holding a distinction between lethal and non-lethal uses of force as it pertains to autonomous weapon systems is discussed in (Blanchard and Taddeo 2023).
All weapons listed by the SFPD in its arsenal: https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=11449771&GUID=9FC57C5A-6E68-4485-A989-632C3837B909.
Known as ‘Taser International’ from incorporation until 2017.
As UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (2010–2016) Heyns did much to bring AWS to the attention of the international community.
As Volodymyr Zelensky declared on 24th December, urging Ukraine’s perseverance in the war against Russia: “Freedom comes at a high price. But slavery has an even higher price.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64088046.
For instance, Article 2 of the 1950 European Convention of Human Rights.
Elke Schwarz’s (2018) work on technology and biopolitics currently provides the only book-length discussion of these sorts of questions with respect to LAWS.
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Blanchard, A. Autonomous Force Beyond Armed Conflict. Minds & Machines 33, 251–260 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-023-09627-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-023-09627-z