Armed Forces: Autonomous Weapon Systems Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord West of Spithead
Main Page: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord West of Spithead's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I cannot answer the first part of the noble Lord’s question, but I will write to him about that. As I said in my original Answer, these issues are very carefully considered, and what the noble Lord suggested is unlikely to happen.
My Lords, the Minister slightly confused me with one of his answers. Will he confirm that for anti-missile, close range anti-aircraft, and anti-torpedo reaction systems, there is considerable merit in going for an autonomous system, even if it has a manual override? From what he said it sounds as though we are not continuing to develop that capability. Is that correct?
My Lords, in essence, an automatic system reacts to a limited number of external stimuli in the same way each time, just as automatic transmission changes gears when a car gets to a certain speed. Fully autonomous systems rely on a certain level of artificial intelligence for making high-level decisions from a very complex environmental input, the result of which might not be fully predictable at a very detailed level. However, let us be absolutely clear that the operation of weapons systems will always—always—be under human control.