Technological Change and Military Innovation

This chapter examines various areas of defense technology, with a philosophy that might be described as “physics for poets.” The chapter provides information on the contemporary state of technology and projections for the future. It reviews broad trends across many areas of military technology, including cyber and artificial intelligence, as well as robotics, directed energy, and stealth. With a goal of making these important subjects accessible to a general audience, it suggests methods by which nonspecialists can make inroads into understanding them. The chapter surveys a wide range of military technologies, with a particular eye toward assessing whether collectively they can be used to revolutionize warfare in the coming years and decades. Ultimately, the chapter's category-by-category examination of military technology employs the same basic framework in the 2000 Technological Change and the Future of Warfare. The core of that book was an analysis of ongoing and likely future developments in various categories of military-related technologies.

Lethal Autonomous Weapons

The question of whether new rules or regulations are required to govern, restrict, or even prohibit the use of autonomous weapons systems has been the subject of debate for the better part of a decade. Despite the claims of advocacy groups, the way ahead remains unclear since the international community has yet to agree on a specific definition of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, and the great powers have largely refused to support an effective ban. In this vacuum, the public has been presented with a heavily one-sided view of “Killer Robots.” This volume presents a more nuanced approach to autonomous weapon systems that recognizes the need to progress beyond a discourse framed by the Terminator and HAL 9000. Reshaping the discussion around this emerging military innovation requires a new line of thought and a willingness to challenge the orthodoxy. Lethal Autonomous Weapons: Re-Examining the Law and Ethics of Robotic Warfare therefore focuses on exploring the moral and legal issues associated with the design, development, and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons. In this volume, we bring together some of the most prominent academics and academic-practitioners in the lethal autonomous weapons space and seek to return some balance to the debate. As part of this effort, we recognize that society needs to invest in hard conversations that tackle the ethics, morality, and law of these new digital technologies and understand the human role in their creation and operation.