Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems: Organizational and Political Consequences

Focusing on existing ‘autonomous’ weapons systems and their uses replaces speculations about future developments and about what robots will or will not be able to do, with attention to the way these weapons are changing and have already changed warfare. The aspects of these transformations that will interest me in this paper are some of the political, organizational and social consequences of the introduction and deployment of various automatic and autonomous weapons systems. Beyond the questions of responsibility and legality, I want to look at the ways in which these weapons change countries’ ability to project power, on how they affect the composition of armed forces, the power relationships within them, and their relations with other major political actors.