HUMAN values comparable to virtue needs to be embedded in military weapons system which can be enabled by artificial intelligence, the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, has said.
Dr Hartley spoke in a House of Lords debate last Friday on a report by the Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems Committee: Proceed with Caution: Artificial intelligence in weapon systems. It advisable that human control be built into every stage of the deployment of an autonmous weapons system (AWS), and that there needs to be an entire ban on AI use in nuclear command and control.
“To implement AI’s advantages well, military cultural values have to be named, explained, after which translated into autonomous weapon systems’ command and control — especially where the meaning of ‘just’ diverges from the type of utilitarian calculus that almost all easily ‘aligns’ digital processes with moral selection,” Dr Hartley said in the talk. “Inherent human values, including virtue, must also be embedded in the event, not only the deployment, of recent AI-enabled weapon systems.
She continued: “As recent use of AI systems shows within the context of worldwide conflict, AI changes questions of proportionality and discrimination. When a database identifies 37,000 potential targets using ‘apparent links’ to an enemy, or an intelligence officer says ‘The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier’, it’s important to connect human responsibility to every motion.
“AWS designed in line with military culture will, at best, practically strengthen the moral facets of just war by reducing or eliminating collateral damage, but we should always guard against a cultural rewiring or feedback loop that dilutes or corrodes the moral human responsibility that just war is determined by.”
Lord Houghton, also speaking in the talk, urged the Government, nonetheless, to “not allow undue caution to inhibit progress”. Lord Hamilton said the UK can be left at “a serious drawback if our enemies adopt AI with enthusiasm and we don’t”.
The Earl of Minto, a defence minister, said that the Government had no intention to create fully autonomous weapons. “The British Ministry of Defence will at all times have context-appropriate human involvement and, subsequently, meaningful human control, responsibility, and accountability,” he said. “We know, nonetheless, that other nations haven’t made similar commitments, and will seek to make use of these recent technologies irresponsibly.”
He said that the UK can be working with allies to determine standards for responsible military AI, while also working to discover dangerous military uses of the technology to assist hold “irresponsible parties to account”.
