Policy guidence
We are on the verge of a technological revolution in the military environment. Driven partly by the need to manage reduced resources and lessen the risks and dangers to military personnel, but also to increase military and technological advantages over adversaries, military forces are considering new autonomous technologies to support and augment human capabilities in all domains of operation.
Autonomy refers to the extent to which a system, platform, or specific functions, are capable of operating with varying levels of oversight by a human controller. Autonomy is
enabled by computing functions, which interact with the operational environment and involve a variety of higher level information processing such as learning, categorization, concept formation, decision making, or problem solving.
Autonomy under human control
An ability to function autonomously allows systems to reach their goals in unpredictable and unstructured environments. In contrast, automatic functioning requires fixed inputs, rules, and defined outputs. An important consideration for the design and operation of systems with autonomous capability is the level of human control in the system. In the military context it is important that autonomy occurs with oversight – “autonomy under human control”.
The prevalence of systems with autonomous capabilities is growing in the military sphere; such systems will likely become a permanent feature of military operations and will be adopted by adversary forces. Non-state groups are likely to seek to acquire this technology, given its expected prevalence in the civilian domain and at a relatively low cost. There are wide ranging implications on the whole spectrum of military operations and capabilities. For these reasons, the role of autonomy is one of the most important considerations for defense policy makers in the current and near future.
Reduce burden
Many nations have military research and development programs that are increasing the extent of autonomous functions in military systems; a growing civilian sector is also evident, such as recent high profile “autonomous vehicles” initiatives. Autonomous technology allows unmanned ground, sea or air platforms to perform navigation, situation awareness, and diagnostic functions without reliance on regular control communications. In manned platforms, autonomous functions can be used to independently select and prioritize information, to reduce the burden on operators.
Depending on the particular system and operational use, autonomous functions can either remove the requirement for a human to be physically present on a platform for control purposes, or augment and compliment human capability to control and operate machines and also assist in decision making. These benefits, however, are coupled with complex legal and ethical concerns, and many systems design and technical challenges. Increasing autonomy in military systems is likely to have wide ranging implications and risks, requiring changes in the nature of planning and conduct of operations, organizational structures, command and control, and personnel training and skill sets.
An effective, appropriate, and acceptable use of autonomous functions in military systems will depend on anticipation of human impacts and consideration of their effects in the design, development, and procurement of such systems, and the planning and ordering of their deployment. This policy guidance document discusses these issues and risks in more detail.
