The Arms Control Association (ACA) has recently released a report that is the culmination of a near 2 year project titled, Arms Control Tomorrow. From March 2021 through December 2022, ACA hosted a series of virtual workshops that focused on the risks posed by the military application of six different new and emerging technologies, and potential arms control measures to reduce and mitigate these risks.
The six technologies studied were:
- Hypersonic Weapons — a missile or vehicle that travels at speeds at least five times the speed of sound.
- Direct Offensive Cyberoperations — a hostile activity against an adversary computer system that aims to compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of information.
- Offensive Counterspace Capabilities — capabilities aimed at deceiving, disrupting, denying, degrading, or destroying space systems.
- Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Capabilities — a variety of computation techniques and enabling technologies that give way for computers to solve complex problems previously handled only by humans. This report focuses on the application of AI for military or warfighting purposes.
- Drones — a vehicle that does not have a pilot, crew, or passengers on board and that is usually autonomous, controlled from a ground station, or given a preprogrammed mission.
- Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems — a weapons system that selects targets and employs force against targets without human intervention.
Ultimately, there are 4 main areas of concern regarding the use of these technologies that are explored in the report:
- Increasing the pace of conflict
- Increasing uncertainty
- Reducing the human role
- Incentivizing arms racing
The full report can be accessed here: Arms Control Tomorrow: Strategies to Mitigate the Risks of New and Emerging Technologies.
More resources related to emerging military technologies can be found at HSDL. Also, be sure to check out the In Focus collection on Artificial Intelligence.
