Название: The Realities of Autonomous Weapons
Автор: Thomas Christian Bächle, Jascha Bareis
Издательство: Bristol University Press
Год: 2025
Страниц: 365
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf (true)
Размер: 27.9 MB

The realities of autonomous weapons are a complex blend of both existing military technologies and visions of their future capabilities. The expected ramifications are profound and always point to the interplay between fact and fiction, actual developments and creative imagination.

This book explores how these realities shape and become themselves shaped by popular culture, regulatory and ethics debates, military doctrines, policies and research. It examines phenomena ranging from film and artistic interpretations to warfare scenarios and weaponized Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The development of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) - ​at times also bearing the ‘lethal’ label under the acronym LAWS - has been subject to intense discussions for years. Numerous political, academic or legal institutions and actors debate the consequences and risks that arise from these technologies, particularly their ethical, social and political implications, with many calling for strict regulation or even a global ban. Despite this public prominence and the perceived consequentiality of these weapons, it often remains surprisingly unclear which technologies are evoked by the term AWS and what they are capable of. AWS can refer to drones, flight carriers, unmanned aerial, ground or maritime vehicles, robots and robot soldiers or cyberweapons such as computer viruses.