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CHALLENGES to ENSURING HUMAN CONTROL OVER MILITARY SWARMS Maaike Verbruggen

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CHALLENGES to ENSURING HUMAN CONTROL OVER MILITARY SWARMS Maaike Verbruggen EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium NON-PROLIFERATION AND DISARMAMENT PAPERS Promoting the European network of independent non-proliferation and disarmament think tanks No. 65 December 2019 THE QUESTION OF SWARMS CONTROL: CHALLENGES TO ENSURING HUMAN CONTROL OVER MILITARY SWARMS maaike verbruggen I. INTRODUCTION SUMMARY Swarms represent a futuristic use of autonomy in The European Union (EU) and EU member states are weapon systems. A swarm is a group of individual increasingly investing in military swarm research, despite systems that interact and operate as a collective with the significant challenges that exist in establishing human control over swarms. These challenges include the high a common goal. Swarms are a novel type of weapon cognitive demands on human operators; interface and system in which there is great military interest because control design choices; disrupted communications of their potential for enabling new types of missions. between operator and swarm, whether from in-built However, because swarms operate as collectives, there technological limitations or environmental factors; and the are real limitations to the extent of control that humans inherent unpredictability of certain kinds of swarms. can exert over them. This paper covers the various These challenges create tactical risks and increase the challenges to human control, especially where relevant chances of undesired outcomes, such as conflict escalation to European Union (EU) research on swarms. and violations of international humanitarian law and The goal of this paper is therefore twofold. First, it ethical principles. EU-funded swarm research aims to increase policymakers’ understanding of how programmes should take steps to address these issues. swarms work based on the current state of the art in the literature of swarm robotics, and to highlight ABOUT THE AUTHOR the challenges posed to human control over swarms. Maaike Verbruggen (Netherlands) is a doctoral researcher Second, it aims to provide clarity on ongoing EU at the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije defence research on swarms, and to inform the defence Universiteit Brussel. Her research focuses on the cooperation communities about the potential problems intersection between emerging technologies, military that swarms might pose. Unfortunately, although innovation and arms control. She is currently working on a the fields of swarm robotics and defence swarms are PhD thesis on military innovation in artificial intelligence. highly related, there is little interaction between them. Integration of the issues in this paper may help to guide the policy decisions of the new European Commission (EC) that took office on 1 December 2019. This paper commences by contexualizing these developments in section II, and providing a brief introduction to swarms in section III. This is followed by a review of the technical literature on swarm robotics discussing human control over machines in section IV and challenges to human control and human–swarm interaction in section V. Section VI considers the policy implications of the challenges raised in the previous sections. The final two main 2 eu non-proliferation and disarmament consortium discussions, section VII and section VIII respectively, changing relations between humans and machines.2 assess the status of human control as an aspect of If not thought out carefully, this new human–machine swarm research in EU defence cooperation and configuration could lead to a loss of human control over provide recommendations for ensuring human control weapon systems. The loss of control is a direct result is considered under EU-funded swarm research not only of automating certain functions, but also of programmes. a deterioration of critical independent judgements by humans over information provided by machines. As II. BACKGROUND operators lose control, they lose the tools to ensure that missions are executed according to their intent. The international response to autonomous weapons Similarly, the challenges of human control over systems and concepts of ‘control’ swarms in particular—while relevant to the discussions on the CCW Convention—also go beyond LAWS. Improvements in autonomous capabilities and The dispersed nature of a swarm means that control increased global military interest in swarms have over it functions differently from controls over most sparked discussions about their impact and the existing autonomous systems, and the international appropriate response by the international community. community needs to consider how to translate existing The prime forum for these discussions is the series concepts and frameworks onto such distributed and of debates on lethal autonomous weapon systems networked military systems. This paper focuses both (LAWS) that take place under the auspices of the 1981 on armed and unarmed swarms because control Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the challenges are relevant to all types of swarms and also, Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may since current research on unarmed swarms can aid be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have in the development of armed swarms. For example, Indiscriminate Effects (CCW Convention). LAWS are swarms that merely provide intelligence, surveillance difficult to define, but they can generally be viewed and reconnaissance (ISR) functions can still provide as weapon systems that can select and engage targets critical information that ultimately leads to deadly without human intervention. engagements or causes accidents, while misperceptions Within the discussions on LAWS, the concept about their use can escalate conflicts. It is thus of ‘meaningful human control’ (MHC) has gained important to apply a broad lens when assessing how popularity as a potential tool for regulation. For swarms work, and not limit the analysis to swarms that example, MHC could entail adopting a positive could be defined as LAWS. obligation to maintain a significant human role in the selection and engagement of targets. However, this The role of the European Union concept also has fierce opponents, and even among its proponents there is no agreement on either the The EU plays a dual role with regard to LAWS. substance of the concept or how it should be used. The first role is regulatory in nature: the European To avoid confusion over the definition—and because Parliament (EP) has called for a ban on LAWS; in this paper covers the nature of the human–machine Geneva the EU diplomatic mission aims to ensure that relationship at large, including in regard to non-critical all weapon systems are developed, deployed and used and non-lethal functions, as explained below—the in compliance with international humanitarian law emphasis here is on ‘human control’ rather than MHC. (IHL); and in Brussels the European External Action In this paper ‘human control’ is used as a catch-all Service (EEAS) actively searches for solutions to the term for the ‘mechanism for achieving [a human] issue of LAWS and how to consolidate the opinion of commander’s intent’ and refers to the extent of human member states, since their opinions on these issues are influence on the outcome of the mission.1 widely divergent.3 The second role is that of defence The issue of human control is wider than LAWS, technology investment and development: in 2015 as autonomy poses fundamental questions about the 2 Huelss, H., ‘Deciding on appropriate use of force: human–machine interaction in weapons systems and emerging norms’, Global Policy, vol. 10 (2019), pp. 354–58. 1 Moyes, R., Key Elements of Meaningful Human Control (Article 36: 3 Kayser, D. and Beck, A., Crunch Time: European Positions on Lethal Geneva, Apr. 2016), p. 4. Autonomous Weapon Systems: Update 2018 (PAX: Utrecht, Nov. 2018). the question of swarms control 3 the EU began directly funding defence research and end, it is unlikely that projects will change course or be development (R&D), with key priority areas being abandoned. Furthermore, international law requires artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in general, legal reviews of new weapons and of new means and and swarms in particular. This paper investigates methods of warfare (so-called Article 36 reviews) the state of swarm research and regulation in the EU, while they are under study or development. Critical and makes recommendations for EU-funded research analysis at an early stage of whether the weapons under programmes to ensure that these two roles do not development do not pose major strategic, ethical and undermine each other. legal risks is therefore essential. The state of swarms technology III. ABOUT SWARMS Currently there is only a small body of literature on A swarm is a group of systems that operate as a swarms robotics that covers in-depth investigations collective. A swarm is not a specific type of system, of their working and use.4 This apparent oversight is but a specific type of configuration, namely ‘a large partially fuelled by a lack of information, as military group of locally interacting individuals with common operational swarms are still a few decades away. goals’.7 This can be better understood with reference However, the literature on swarms robotics provides to biology. A school of fish, a flock of birds and a pack of more information about how swarms work and the wolves are all swarms: each comprises individuals, but challenges to human control over swarms. This paper the individuals interact and work as a group to achieve translates these technical findings
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