AutoNorms

Weaponised artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of autonomous weapons systems (AWS) could diminish the role of meaningful human decision-making in warfare. 

Today, states already use more than 130 systems that can autonomously track targets. But future autonomous weapons will increasingly include AI in their critical functions. Here, machines, rather than humans, will make life or death decisions. This development is likely to change international norms governing the use of force. 

The EU-funded AutoNorms project will develop a new theoretical approach to study how norms, understood as standards of appropriateness, manifest and change in practices. It will investigate norm emergence and change across four contexts of practices (military, transnational political, dual-use and popular imagination) in the US, China, Japan and Russia. It will also review the impact AWS could have on the current international security order.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 852123).