The United States government needs to develop and employ lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) on the battlefield. There are two main arguments that this paper will explore: first, robots are potentially more proficient than humans on the battlefield and second, the United States needs to employ LAWS because other countries already are and the U.S. needs to set the international example. Humans are inferior to robots in warfare and this paper will discuss historical examples in which humans exercised poor judgment in battle or were incapable of deciding due to the effects of combat. Humans are more expensive than robots and this paper show the economic benefits of employing LAWS. As a superpower, the U.S. needs to develop and employ LAWS to establish international norms and be prepared to propose international agreements. The U.S. is one of two countries that has a policy regarding LAWS and it is vague and over five years old. This paper describes the other countries that are currently developing and employing LAWS. Removing the human from the loop is an under represented argument because of legitimate concerns to include lowering the bar to entry to war, violating human dignity, and hacking. This study explores and ultimately refutes these concerns. Ultimately, the most important reason why LAWS should be adopted is that they will save lives.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.1. Introduction * 2. Main Body (Discussion/analysis) * 3. Humans Are Inferior to Robots Competing in the Global Arms Race * 4. Another Approach (Counter Arguments) * 5. Recommendations and ConclusionA Lethal Autonomous Weapon is a robot that is designed to select and attack military targets without direct intervention by a human operator. The idea of not having a human operator is called "human-out-of-the-loop." Autonomous weapons also have the capability of operating with a "human-in-the-loop" (like a drone and drone operator) or a "human-on-the-loop" in which a human operator supervises the targeting process and can intervene at any time during the cycle. Currently, the U.S. employs both human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop weapons in combat. Lethal autonomous Weapons are also called LAWS, LARS (lethal autonomous robots), robotic weapons, or killer robots. For these purposes, LAWS, robots, or lethal autonomous weapon will be used.This study will present a somewhat unrepresented argument, that LAWS should be developed and employed by the United States on the battlefield. There are several premises to support this conclusion. First, humans are overall inferior on the battlefield as compared to robots. Historically humans deal poorly with the traumatic effects of combat resulting in war atrocities, posttraumatic stress disorder, increased veteran suicide and homelessness; robots would not be negatively affected by combat like humans are. Additionally, human soldiers are more expensive in the long run than robots.Second, the United States needs to stay on the cutting edge of technology especially in warfare. History provides examples of the United States using ethically questionable strategies in war such as unrestricted submarine warfare and strategic bombing, both in WWII, without having had the chance to fully examine the potential ramifications of those strategies prior to the heat of conflict. Moreover, other nations are already employing LAWS. The United States needs to lead the development of these weapons in terms of technological capabilities and ethical standards so that an international agreement can be achieved before they are misused by another nation.

The United States government needs to develop and employ lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) on the battlefield. There are two main arguments that this paper will explore: first, robots are potentially more proficient than humans on the battlefield and second, the United States needs to employ LAWS because other countries already are and the US needs to set the international example. Humans are inferior to robots in warfare and this paper will discuss historical examples in which humans exercised poor judgment in battle or were incapable of deciding due to the effects of combat. Humans are more expensive than robots and this paper show the economic benefits of employing LAWS. As a superpower, the US needs to develop and employ LAWS to establish international norms and be prepared to propose international agreements. The US is one of two countries that has a policy regarding LAWS and it is vague and over five years old. This paper describes the other countries that are currently developing and employing LAWS. Removing the human from the loop is an under represented argument because of legitimate concerns to include lowering the bar to entry to war, violating human dignity, and hacking. This study explores and ultimately refutes these concerns. Ultimately, the most important reason why LAWS should be adopted is that they will save lives.

"Because of the increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, also commonly known as drones) in various military and para-military (i.e., CIA) settings, there has been increasing debate in the international community as to whether it is morally and ethically permissible to allow robots (flying or otherwise) the ability to decide when and where to take human life. In addition, there has been intense debate as to the legal aspects, particularly from a humanitarian law framework. In response to this growing international debate, the United States government released the Department of Defense (DoD) 3000.09 Directive (2011), which sets a policy for if and when autonomous weapons would be used in US military and para-military engagements. This US policy asserts that only "human-supervised autonomous weapon systems may be used to select and engage targets, with the exception of selecting humans as targets, for local defense ...". This statement implies that outside of defensive applications, autonomous weapons will not be allowed to independently select and then fire upon targets without explicit approval from a human supervising the autonomous weapon system. Such a control architecture is known as human supervisory control, where a human remotely supervises an automated system (Sheridan 1992). The defense caveat in this policy is needed because the United States currently uses highly automated systems for defensive purposes, e.g., Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM) systems and Patriot anti-missile missiles. Due to the time-critical nature of such environments (e.g., soldiers sleeping in barracks within easy reach of insurgent shoulder-launched missiles), these automated defensive systems cannot rely upon a human supervisor for permission because of the short engagement times and the inherent human neuromuscular lag which means that even if a person is paying attention, there is approximately a half-second delay in hitting a firing button, which can mean the difference for life and death for the soldiers in the barracks. So as of now, no US UAV (or any robot) will be able to launch any kind of weapon in an offensive environment without human direction and approval. However, the 3000.09 Directive does contain a clause that allows for this possibility in the future. This caveat states that the development of a weapon system that independently decides to launch a weapon is possible but first must be approved by the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD(P)); the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (USD(AT&L)); and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not all stakeholders are happy with this policy that leaves the door open for what used to be considered science fiction. Many opponents of such uses of technologies call for either an outright ban on autonomous weaponized systems, or in some cases, autonomous systems in general (Human Rights Watch 2013, Future of Life Institute 2015, Chairperson of the Informal Meeting of Experts 2016). Such groups take the position that weapons systems should always be under "meaningful human control," but do not give a precise definition of what this means. One issue in this debate that often is overlooked is that autonomy is not a discrete state, rather it is a continuum, and various weapons with different levels of autonomy have been in the US inventory for some time. Because of these ambiguities, it is often hard to draw the line between automated and autonomous systems. Present-day UAVs use the very same guidance, navigation and control technology flown on commercial aircraft. Tomahawk missiles, which have been in the US inventory for more than 30 years, are highly automated weapons with accuracies of less than a meter. These offensive missiles can navigate by themselves with no GPS, thus exhibiting some autonomy by today's definitions. Global Hawk UAVs can find their way home and land on their own without any human intervention in the case of a communication failure. The growth of the civilian UAV market is also a critical consideration in the debate as to whether these technologies should be banned outright. There is a $144.38B industry emerging for the commercial use of drones in agricultural settings, cargo delivery, first response, commercial photography, and the entertainment industry (Adroit Market Research 2019) More than $100 billion has been spent on driverless car development (Eisenstein 2018) in the past 10 years and the autonomy used in driverless cars mirrors that inside autonomous weapons. So, it is an important distinction that UAVs are simply the platform for weapon delivery (autonomous or conventional), and that autonomous systems have many peaceful and commercial uses independent of military applications"--

This examination of the implications and regulation of autonomous weapons systems combines contributions from law, robotics and philosophy.

This book provides an insight into lethal autonomous weapon systems and debates whether it would be morally correct to give machines the power to decide who lives and who dies on the battlefield.

Lethal autonomous weapons are weapon systems that can select and destroy targets without intervention by a human operator. Fighting Machines explores the relationship between lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS), the concept of human dignity, and international law. Much of this analysis speaks to three fundamental and related problems: When a LAWS takes a human life, is that killing a violation of human dignity? Can states and non-state actors use LAWS in accordance with international law? And are there certain responsibilities of human decision-making during wartime that we should not delegate to machines? In the book, Dan Saxon argues that the use of LAWS to take human life constitutes a violation of human dignity. Rather than concentrating on the victims of the use of lethal force, Saxon instead focuses on the technology and relevant legal principles and rules to advance several propositions. First, as LAWS operate at increasingly greater speeds, their use will undermine the opportunities for, and the value of, human reasoning and judgment. Second, by transferring responsibility for reasoning and judgment about the use of lethal force to computer software, the use of LAWS violates the dignity of the soldiers, commanders, and law enforcement officers who historically have made such decisions, and, therefore, breaches international law. Third, weapon designs that facilitate teamwork between humans and autonomous systems are necessary to ensure that humans and LAWS can operate interdependently so that individuals can fulfil their obligations under international law—including the preservation of their own dignity—and ensure that human reasoning and judgment are available for cognitive functions better suited to humans than machines. Fighting Machines speaks to the fields of international humanitarian law, human rights, criminal law, and legal philosophy. It will also be of interest to non-lawyers, especially military officers, government policy makers, political scientists, and international relations scholars, as well as roboticists and ethicists.

Autonomous weapons systems seem to be on the path to becoming accepted technologies of warfare. The weaponization of artificial intelligence raises questions about whether human beings will maintain control of the use of force. The notion of meaningful human control has become a focus of international debate on lethal autonomous weapons systems among members of the United Nations: many states have diverging ideas about various complex forms of human-machine interaction and the point at which human control stops being meaningful. In Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss present an innovative study of how testing, developing, and using weapons systems with autonomous features shapes ethical and legal norms, and how standards manifest and change in practice. Autonomous weapons systems are not a matter for the distant future – some autonomous features, such as in air defence systems, have been in use for decades. They have already incrementally changed use-of-force norms by setting emerging standards for what counts as meaningful human control. As UN discussions drag on with minimal progress, the trend towards autonomizing weapons systems continues. A thought-provoking and urgent book, Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms provides an in-depth analysis of the normative repercussions of weaponizing artificial intelligence.