After the publication of its work on the augmented soldier, the Defence Ethics Committee submitted to Florence Parly and the Ministry of the Armed Forces its opinionon the integration of autonomy in lethal weapon systems. This is a central topic chosen because of the strategic, legal and ethical issues raised by the development of military applications of artificial intelligence, and in particular by the potential emergence of fully autonomous lethal weapon systems (SALA).

The Committee’s conclusions confirm the positions taken by France for several years on the subject of SALA: France confirms that it will not develop or use fully autonomous lethal weapons systems.

An ethical committee made up of specialists from the world of technology

The Defence Ethics Committee is a permanent structure for reflection on the ethical issues of new technologies in the defence field, set up by decision of the Ministry of Defence. Set up in January 2020, it is composed of qualified civilian and military personalities with expertise in the operational, scientific, medical, philosophical, historical and legal fields. Its objective is to provide its perspectives to the Minister of the Armed Forces and her major subordinates around two issues:

• the ethical issues raised by scientific and technical innovations and their possible military applications
• issues related to changes in the military function

The establishment of this committee emanates from France’s stated desire to get involved in these issues around the development of military applications of artificial intelligence, and in particular autonomous lethal weapon systems.

A report on the integration of autonomy in lethal weapon systems

Following a thought process, the Committee identified six guiding principles and proposed 25 recommendations regarding research, employment, methodology, training and design of techniques to enable autonomy in weapon systems. In its opinion, the Defence Ethics Committee carried out an in-depth definitional work that draws attention to the pitfalls of the lexical field that wrongly compares the machine to man (anthropomorphism).

At the end of this initial analysis, the Defence Ethics Committee chose to make a strict distinction between :

• Autonomous Lethal Weapon Systems (ALWS), which are lethal weapon systems programmed to be able to evolve their operating rules, to escape human control and to redefine their mission on their own;
• And Lethal Weapon Systems with Autonomy (LWAS ) which are systems with automated functions, but under human control, under conditions that ensure:
  • Respect for the constitutional principle of the necessary free disposal of armed force,
  • Respect for the principle of continuity of the chain of command from order to enforcement,

  • A SALIA could not take lethal initiatives – without human control. It could not change its operating conditions on its own.

In sum, there is a difference in nature between SALA, and the notion of SALIA introduced by the Committee, which refers to a system that cannot be deployed without human intervention: the human remains at the heart of the decisions to use lethal force.

The report also mentions the notion of autonomy and explains all the existing definitions on the subject. The Ministry of the Armed Forces announced that it would carefully study this opinion in order to express its views on the use of these systems and that it “condemns any desire to develop, use or export fully autonomous weapon systems, i.e. those capable of evolving, beyond the framework of use initially set, their rules for the use of lethal force.

The Minister of the Armed Forces will comment on the independent opinion issued by the Defence Ethics Committee once its conclusions have been appropriated by the Ministry’s departments. She salutes the work and investment of the committee in the service of a better critical knowledge of the ethical issues of defence.

The opinions are available here in French and English.

Translated from Intégration de l’autonomie des systèmes d’armes létaux : Le Comité d’éthique de la défense remet son avis