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Value Sensitive Design for autonomous weapon systems – a primer

Profile image of Christine Van BurkenChristine Van Burken

Ethics and Information Technology

https://doi.org/10.1007/S10676-023-09687-W
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14 pages

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Abstract

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is a design methodology developed by Batya Friedman and Peter Kahn (2003) that brings in moral deliberations in an early stage of a design process. It assumes that neither technology itself is value neutral, nor shifts the value-ladennes to the sole usage of technology. This paper adds to emerging literature onVSD for autonomous weapons systems development and discusses extant literature on values in autonomous systems development in general and in autonomous weapons development in particular. I identify opportunities, such as public debates, and threats, such as the classified nature of the design process, for VSD in autonomous weapons development. This paper contributes to academic debates about the non-neutrality of technology by pointing out that values have been and can be explicitly designed into autonomous systems. It is informative for policy makers and designers who are tasked with developing actual autonomous weapons or policies around such sys...

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Steven Umbrello

Delphi - Interdisciplinary Review of Emerging Technologies

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) have becomes the subject of continuous debate both at national and international levels. Arguments have been proposed both for the development and use of LAWs as well as their prohibition from combat landscapes. Regardless, the development of LAWs continues in numerous nation-states. This paper builds upon previous philosophical arguments for the development and use of LAWs and proposes a design framework that can be used to ethically direct their development. The conclusion is that the philosophical arguments that underpin the adoption of LAWs, although prima facie insufficient, can be actualised through the proposed Value Sensitive Design (VSD) approach. Hence, what is proposed is a principled design approach that can be used to embed stakeholder values into a design, encourage stakeholder cooperation and coordination and as a result promote social acceptance of LAWs as a preferable future fact of war.

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Averting the moral free-for-all of autonomous weapons
Ryan Jenkins

Waging warfare and developing technologies are two distinctively human activities that have long been closely intertwined. Emerging technologies have continually shaped military strategy and policy, from the invention of Greek fire, to gunpowder, artillery, nuclear weapons, and GPS- and laser-guided munitions. The diligent student of military history is also a keen observer of technological change. Once again, a new technology on the horizon promise to drastically alter the texture and norms of combat: lethal autonomous weapons. Remarkable advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision lend an urgent credibility to the suggestion that reliable autonomous weapons are possible.

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What are autonomous weapon systems and what ethical issues do they rise ?
Marek Foss

2008

Autonomous weapon (AW) systems are a new and rapidly developing branch of warfare industry. However, autonomous weapons are not devices that belong strictly to the XIX century, in fact some authors date the birth of first autonomous weapons back to 1920's[1]. But the delicate matter of the definition of such weapons brings questions whether it is not the case that todays machines are really autonomous while yesterdays were just enhanced weaponry, preset to react to a certain, small number of input conditions. Also, should the definition state what humans would like the AW systems to be, or what they really are[2]? Moreover, does the enhanced capabilities of such systems change the way humans should treat the actions of such machines? Do they pose a threat to humans like a kitchen knife, that has to be misused by a person to cause harm — or like an enemy soldier, that nevertheless has to take responsibility for his actions? This paper tries to establish a definition of AW systems...

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Related topics

  • Human Geography
  • Philosophy
  • Applied Ethics
  • Information Technology Ethics
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