Denise Garcia, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs
This book examines the complexities of creating a global framework to govern the military use of artificial intelligence (AI) by proposing inclusive and humane ways to forge cooperation. Three novel humanist conceptions are introduced: common good governance, transnational networked cooperation, and humanity’s security. This book is the first to survey the threats to peace in the shifting world order by investigating the current patterns and trends in the global use of and investment in militarizing AI and the development of autonomous systems. The author weaves in an insider participant-observer focus on the decade-long, high-level diplomatic attempts to set limits on autonomy in weapon systems—known as “killer robots”—and offers a path for the creation of an international treaty on autonomous weapons. The absence of global norms on military AI and unrestrained autonomous killing will have a destabilizing impact on peace and security by weakening the prevailing international law and rules of peaceful multilateralism. The consequences will be imperiled peace and security, weakened international stability, and a precarious world order. The study draws on earlier successful cooperation and international law-making in several areas: nuclear and chemical weapons bans, the protection of outer space and the ozone, nuclear testing, the Arctic, Antarctica, and the oceans. It offers an appraisal of the way that previous successes in global cooperation can inform the formation of common good governance on AI that is respectful of future generations and protective of human dignity and humanity’s security.
