ICT4Peace and the Zurich Hub for Ethics and Technology (ZHET) participated in the UN Meeting (GGE) on Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWS) in Geneva from 9 to 13 April 2018.

ICT4Peace and ZHET presented its report on “AI, Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems and Peace Time Threats”, which can be found here.

While states were still debating how to launch the negotiations regarding LAWS under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), a consensus on the position that human control over the use of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) must be maintained, was emerging during the week. For more details kindly refer to the Statement of Human Rights Watch at the Conference.

Also to be mentioned is that the of list of countries calling for a ban on fully autonomous weapons (or the use thereof) now stands at 26, with the additions of Austria, China, Colombia and Djibouti.