AI makes it cheaper and faster to watch people and to fight wars. Systems that recognise faces can help find a missing person or a suspect, but they can also track protesters or whole populations. Software that helps a drone navigate can also help it select a target. This is the idea of dual use: technology built for one purpose can be turned to another, and the people who build it do not control how it is used.
The lessons begin with a report on facial recognition and a company that built a huge database of faces taken from the internet, with questions about privacy, accuracy and policing. You then look at autonomous weapons: what they are, why the United Nations and campaigners want them regulated or banned, and what a defence expert says about the choices militaries face.
These topics are contested. Governments, militaries, companies, researchers and rights groups disagree about what should be allowed, and the lessons present some views more than others, so treat them as a starting point for your own thinking. Watch them in order, then continue on to Regulation & Policy.
IE Insights speaks with policy researcher Krystyna Marcinek and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams about what autonomous weapons are, how they work, and how they might be regulated.
Video 9minA United Nations explainer on the risks of AI weapons that can select and attack targets without human oversight, and the case for a legally binding treaty. Features UN, Human Rights Watch and Stop Killer Robots voices.
Video 7minPaul Scharre, a former US Army Ranger and Pentagon official, discusses the ethical, legal and strategic questions raised by weapons that can act without human input. Recorded in 2018, so it predates recent developments. A long, optional watch.
Video 57min