News Briefing 10-14 June 2024

Autonomy in weapons systems, and AI in security and defence

• Ukraine/International: Ukraine’s Vision of Robot Assassins Shows Need for Binding AI Rules: Stop Killer Robots is quoted in this piece on potential Ukrainian development of autonomous weapons and NATO’s ethical AI framework by Bloomberg. Stop Killer Robots underlined that ‘Non-binding principles and declarations, and ad hoc policy measures, are not sufficient to address the significant challenges which autonomous weapons pose.’
• International: Reinventing the wheel? Three lessons that the AWS debate can learn from existing arms control agreements: Writing for the ICRC’s humanitarian law and policy blog, Laura Bruun, researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, points ‘to three lessons from past arms control negotiations that can be applied to the AWS debate: First, a prohibition does not need to be grounded in a clearly defined class of weapons, second, restrictions can be used to clarify what international humanitarian law (IHL) requires in the specific context of AWS, and third, if there is will (and a need), two-tiered instruments can be grounded in concerns beyond IHL.’
• Australia: Australia pushes ahead in the AI arms race: Writing in Declassified Australia, Matilda Byrne (National Coordinator of the Australia Stop Killer Robots campaign) argues that Australia’s approach to autonomous weapons ‘does not address the unprecedented moral and ethical risks posed… and the imperative to establish new international law to address them.’ Australia does not currently support the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons. 
• International: Autonomous weapons: Palantir, Airbus engineers seek to calm ‘killer robot’ fears: France24 reports that ‘top AI engineers at defence technology companies defended the need for autonomous weapons’ recently, with Antoine Bordes, head of artificial intelligence at European defence start-up Helsing, telling a conference at Sciences Po university in Paris that ‘the battlefield is flooded with data … whoever can harness this data, understand it, make sense of it faster is going to have a tactical edge.’
• US: What Gen Z wants from AI policymakers: In this interview, Stop Killer Robots campaign member Encode Justice highlights Gen Z’s top AI concerns, with autonomous weapons among them.
• US: Eric Schmidt Is Secretly Testing AI Military Drones In A Wealthy Silicon Valley Suburb: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s new military AI company has ‘accelerated’ development of his new military drone company, ‘which sources in a position to know said involves using artificial intelligence to help drones home in on battlefield targets’, according to Forbes (previous reporting on this available in news briefings here). Previously known as White Stork, the project has been renamed as ‘Project Eagle’.
• International: Pope Francis to weigh in on ‘ethical’ AI at G7 summit: Today (Friday 14 June), Pope Francis will become the first pontiff to address the G7 summit. The Pope will speak to G7 leaders about ethical concerns around AI, and is expected to urge leaders to adopt AI regulations, including on autonomous weapons systems. 
• International: Wars in Gaza, Ukraine loom over G7 summit as Trudeau heads to Italy: Coverage of the G7 summit by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation includes quotes from Stop Killer Robots campaign member Project Ploughshares, with researcher Branka Marijan stressing that the G7 ‘should come up with concrete regulations for weapons that can select targets and deploy force without human intervention’.
• International: Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the Red Cross Committee: ‘Gaza is a paradigm shift because of the high level of destruction’: In a wide ranging interview with El Pais, Mirjana Spoljaric, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross discusses concerns around military AI and emphasises the need for legally binding rules on autonomous weapons. 

Facial recognition, biometric identification, surveillance

• Germany: Germany’s live facial recognition system could be unconstitutional: Data watchdog: This piece highlights the ongoing debate about the balance between public safety and individual privacy rights. ‘A real-time facial recognition system used by German police to track criminals has reportedly been deployed without the knowledge of the local data protection agency and could be against the country’s constitution.’
• Ireland: Man wrongfully arrested in the US warns Ireland against facial recognition tech: Robert Williams, who was wrongfully arrested and detained in the U.S. based on facial recognition technology, recently spoke at an event in Dublin hosted by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, in which he spoke about his own experience of wrongful arrest. The event highlighted that wrongful arrests and detentions can have severe implications on individuals’ lives and freedoms, and that it is important for policymakers to consider such concerns when evaluating the potential implementation of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT).
• US: These Wrongly Arrested Black Men Say a California Bill Would Let Police Misuse Face Recognition: US civilians are questioning the use of the technology given inaccurate incarceration and have cautioned that ‘the use of face recognition technology has been used as ‘the reason for a search or arrest’  and has led to wrongful arrest.’
• US: Michigan City Council orders comprehensive facial recognition policy for local police: Recently, we have seen an increase in reporting on global concerns when it comes to the use and impact of facial recognition technology. This week, Abigail Opiah writing for Biometric Update, shares views over the ‘potential threats posed by such technology to individual rights’, and the need for safeguards.