The Artificial Intelligence Arms Race: Trends and World Leaders in Autonomous Weapons Development
| Author | Justin Haner,Denise Garcia |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12713 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
The Artificial Intelligence Arms Race: Trends
and World Leaders in Autonomous Weapons
Development
Justin Haner
Northeastern University
Denise Garcia
International Committee for Robot Arms Control and
Northeastern University
Abstract
Autonomous weapons technologies, which rely on artificial intelligence, are advancing rapidly and without sufficient public
debate or accountability. Oversight of increased autonomy in warfare is critically important because this deadly technology is
likely to proliferate rapidly, enhance terrorist tactics, empower authoritarian rulers, undermine democratic peace, and is vulner-
able to bias, hacking, and malfunction. The top competitors in this arms race are the United States, China, Russia, South Korea,
and the European Union.
Spending soars as progress stalls: where is the
public debate on lethal artificial intelligence and
autonomous weapons systems development?
As United Nations member states have made little progress
in discussions of lethal autonomous weapons systems (AWS)
over the last 5 years, the nature of warfare is transforming
before our eyes. This change is occurring without proper
accountability or public scrutiny as a handful of countries
continue to make massive investments in increasing the
autonomy of their weapons systems paired with advanced
artificial intelligence (AI). Greater debate is urgently needed
as lethal AWS are likely to proliferate rapidly, enhance terror-
ist tactics, empower authoritarian rulers, undermine demo-
cratic peace, and are vulnerable to bias, hacking, and
malfunction. A proper public debate concerning the ramifi-
cations of ‘killer robots’should start in earnest.
Technological advances in autonomy are often incremen-
tal and come with a low political profile. Autonomy is being
added to different parts of existing weapons systems and
meaningful human control, from target planning to mission
execution, will be gradually lost without proper considera-
tion of the moral dilemmas it raises (Roff, 2014; Sharkey,
2017; Schwarz, 2018). This widely unaccounted for develop-
ment of AWS is taking place as the worldwide market is
expanding rapidly. Global military spending on AWS and AI,
narrowly defined, is projected to reach $16 and $18 billon
respectively by 2025 (Sander and Meldon, 2014; Research
and Markets, 2018).
This article proceeds as follows. The following section uses
current events to project the future impacts that increas-
ingly autonomous weapons, if left unchecked, could have
on international security. The second section uses all pub-
licly available data to establish and rank the top five world
leaders according to their intent to develop autonomous
technology, their capacity to develop AWS hardware, and
their level of AI expertise. The final section highlights the
importance of ongoing efforts to restrict or ban the use of
AWS and of setting global norms under international law
now by these leading states, before it is too late.
Projections from current trends in lethal AI and
AWS development
Autonomous weapons are poised for rapid proliferation. At
present, this technology is concentrated in a few powerful,
wealthy countries that have the resources required to invest
heavily in advanced robotics and AI research. However,
Moore’s Law and the declining costs of production, including
3D printing, will soon enable many states and non-state
actors to procure killer robots (Scharre, 2014). At present,
quadcopter drones cost as little as $25 and a small $35 Rasp-
berry Pi computer can run AI advanced enough to defeat Uni-
ted States Air Force fighter pilots in combat simulations
(Cuthbertson, 2016). Accountability will become increasingly
difficult as more international actors are able to acquire lethal
AWS. Houthi rebels are using weaponized drones and both
ISIS and Boko Haram have adapted drones for use as
Global Policy (2019) 10:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12713 ©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 3 . September 2019 331
Special Section Article
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