The Role of Civilian Innovation in the Development of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12663 |
| Author | Maaike Verbruggen |
The Role of Civilian Innovation in the
Development of Lethal Autonomous Weapon
Systems
Maaike Verbruggen
Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Abstract
Civilian innovation is often said to be an important facilitator in the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems
(LAWS). This claim is held up as both a reason to ban LAWS urgently, and why a ban would be impractical. But we know little
about how this dynamic plays out in practice. Theoretical insights on technology transfer can help to analyse the situation.
They suggest that obtaining and utilising the civilian technology is harder than often assumed. Civil-military cooperation is
hindered by the stark differences between the civilian and defence industries. Business practices are out of sync, there are
few social ties between the two worlds, innovative cultures do not translate, and many civilian engineers resist cooperation
with the military. Additionally, defence still needs to modify civilian technologies to meet military standards and develop mili-
tary-exclusive applications of autonomy. While civilian innovation thus advances what is technologically possible, this does not
automatically translate into major advances or rapid diffusion of LAWS.
Civilian technology as an enabler
Over the past decade, the international community has
become increasingly concerned about the prospect of Lethal
Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), weapon systems that
can select and attack targets without human intervention.
However, global discussions on governance of LAWS are
only slowly moving forward. One supposed obstacle is that
LAWS would be very difficult to effectively control in a tradi-
tional arms control regime. The argument is that civilian
companies are taking the lead in developing Artificial Intelli-
gence (AI), the most important enabler of autonomous
systems. Such civilian technology will easily diffuse to all
countries and all militaries as it is freely accessible. Ban
advocates argue that this makes a ban only more urgent,
while critics pose that a ban might therefore be unenforce-
able (Chairperson of the Informal Meeting of Experts, 2016).
When we take a closer look, it becomes clear that we
actually know very little about the real influence of civilian
innovation on the development of LAWS. There are few
statistics available on the extent of civilian-sourced technolo-
gies in weapon systems, and it is difficult to measure the
intangible influence of civilian breakthroughs. Instead, the
literature on spin-off (military-to-civilian transfer) and spin-in
(civil-to-military transfer) can aid us here to consider to what
extent civilian innovation enables the development of LAWS
and what this implies for regulation.
The subject of inquiry is autonomous technologies: all
technologies enabling autonomy; the capability to self-govern
system functions. This includes amongst other AI, robotics,
control systems and the enabling infrastructure. The scope
is not limited to LAWS for three reasons. First, it has proven
to be difficult to impossible to define LAWS and delineate
the subject. More importantly, these technologies are gen-
eral-purpose, and there are no technical differences
between technologies used to develop LAWS and other
military applications of autonomy. It is therefore impossible
to only cover spin-in of technologies that enable LAWS.
Finally, LAWS are not the only potentially impactful use of
autonomy, as military applications in for instance health
management, mobility or logistics could also affect international
peace and security.
This paper will explore the importance of civilian innova-
tion for militaries, the theoretical problems with spin-in, and
the extent to which civilian technologies need modification.
It poses that civilian innovation has greatly increased what’s
possible, but that spin-in will not occur naturally, and needs
dedicated policies to make it happen. Civilian innovation is
therefore no guarantee for rapid and widespread diffusion
of LAWS, and neither would a ban be fundamentally unen-
forceable or harmful because of it. Autonomous technolo-
gies are not out of control, and military innovation is
instead guided by human actions and technical, political,
economic and social factors. This means that once we better
understand the course of innovation, effective governance
of LAWS becomes possible.
Military interest in civilian innovation
Civilian innovation has become more important over the
past decades due to declining military expenditure, a highly
innovative civilian industry, and a more capability oriented
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12663
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 3 . September 2019
338
Special Section Article
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