Today, the 15th, and tomorrow, 16 September 2021, an International Conference to Maintain Human Control in Autonomous Weapon Systems will be held on the initiative of the Austrian Foreign Ministry. Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, together with Izumi Nakamitsu, United Nations High Commissioner for Disarmament Affairs, Gilles Carbonnier, Vice President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Phil Twyford, New Zealand’s Minister of Disarmament, opened the virtual conference on the current challenges of increasingly autonomous weapon systems.
Through this conference on autonomous weapon systems, we are once again showing that Austria is at the forefront of international disarmament and arms control efforts,
said Alexander Schallenberg.
Technological progress allows the development of weapon systems that can independently select and attack targets without human control. The increased military use of artificial intelligence combined with autonomous systems confronts the international community with important ethical, legal and security-policy questions.
What greater attack on human rights and human dignity could there be than allowing an algorithm to make life-or-death decisions? Human rights and humanitarian international law are our compass; they must continue to focus on people, not on machines. Otherwise, we face digital anarchy,
warned the Foreign Minister.
This is why Austria is one of the countries preventatively supporting a legally binding international ban on autonomous weapon systems without human control. During the two-day virtual conference, representatives from the fields of science, research, politics, and civil society discusse the challenge of ensuring a minimum standard for human control at the international level.
For me, the question of killer robots is not an abstract of the future. Technological development is advancing incredibly quickly, while politics and society lag behind in some ways. With this conference, we want to create broad societal awareness of the issue. When it comes to autonomous weapon systems, Austria fully supports an international legal standard that would guarantee human control. Self-regulation by the developers is not sufficient. We must establish guard rails to ensure that no red lines are crossed,
emphasised Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg.
