On September 4, our Association expert, Olexiy Plotnikov, participated in the meeting of the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems in Geneva. This group is developing a proposal for a future Sixth Protocol to the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which prohibits or restricts the use of weapons that cause excessive injury or have indiscriminate effects.
As an ARC expert noted on this matter, “In practice, much of the group’s work was devoted to diplomacy and the search for compromises that would satisfy everyone. As a result, most of the text repeats existing norms of the law of war. Among the new provisions, the concept of human control as a mandatory element of the use of autonomous weapons was upheld. There are some innovations in the procedure for assessing weapons for compliance with international humanitarian law”.
It should be noted that at the Group meeting, Professor Plotnikov presented to the participants our Association’s analytical work in the field of artificial intelligence, based on exposing the occupiers’ provocations in Crimea, which the aggressor has turned into a hub for testing relevant technologies in the military sphere.
As a reminder, our Association has previously raised these issues in systematic communications with UN bodies, including the OHCHR, at OSCE ODIHR Human Dimension meetings and conferences in Ukraine, systematically proposing to authorized international structures to examine, using the Crimean examples, issues related to artificial intelligence and the dissemination of information in interstate conflicts.
Our Association’s researches have demonstrated the current inability to address the subjectivity and responsibility of artificial intelligence, necessitating a legal approach to it both as a source of heightened danger and as a modern tool for committing international crimes, including war crimes.
