by Paul Scharre
51
Encapsulated torpedo mines: “Mine Warfare Trends,” Mine Warfare Association, presentation, May 10, 2011, www.minwara.org/Meetings/2011_05/Presentations/tuespdf/WMason_0900/MWTrends.pdf.
51
Mk 60 CAPTOR: Federation of American Scientists, “MK60 Encapsulated Torpedo (CAPTOR),” FAS Military Analysis Network, December 13, 1998, https://web.archive.org/web/20160902152533/http://fas.org:80/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/mk60.htm.
51
Russian PMK-2: Scott C. Truver, “Taking Mines Seriously: Mine Warfare in China’s Near Seas,” Naval War College Review, 65 no. 2 (Spring 2012), 40–41, https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/19669a3b-6795-406c-8924-106d7a5adb93/Taking-Mines-Seriously--Mine-Warfare-in-China-s-Ne. Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and William S. Murray, “Chinese Mine Warfare,” China Maritime Studies Institute, (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 2009), 16, 20, 28–30, 44, 90.
51
Sensor Fuzed Weapon: Textron Systems, “SFW: Sensor Fuzed Weapon,” video, published on November 21, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEXMHf2Usso.
53
TASM was in service in the U.S. Navy from 1982 to 1994: “Harpoon,” NavSource Online, http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/57s1.htm. James C. O’Halloran, ed., “RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk,” IHS Jane’s Weapons: Strategic, 2015-2016 (United Kingdom, 2015), 219-223. Carlo Kopp, “Tomahawk Cruise Missile Variants.” “AGM/BGM/RGM/UGM-109,” Designation-Systems.net, http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-109.html.
53
“lack of confidence in how the targeting picture”: Bryan McGrath, interview, May 19, 2016.
54
“a weapon we just didn’t want to fire”: Ibid.
54
“Because the weapons cost money”: Ibid.
55
Harpy 2, or Harop: Publicly available documents are unclear on whether the Harop retains the Harpy’s ability to conduct fully autonomous anti-radar engagements as one mode of operation. Israel Aerospace Industries, developer of the Harpy and Harop, declined to comment on details of the Harpy and Harop functionality. Israel Aerospace Industries, “Harop,” http://www.iai.co.il/2013/36694-46079-EN/Business_Areas_Land.aspx.
55
“You’ve got to talk to the missile:”: Bryan McGrath, interview, May 19, 2016.
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At least sixteen countries already possess: The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Turkey. Fuhrmann and Horowitz, “Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.”
4 The Future Being Built Today: Autonomous Missiles, Drones, and Robot Swarms
60
the MQ-25 is envisioned primarily as a tanker: Sydney J. Freedburg, Jr., “CBARS Drone Under OSD Review; Can A Tanker Become A Bomber?” Breaking Defense, February 19, 2016, http://breakingdefense.com/2016/02/cbars-drone-under-osd-review-can-a-tanker-become-a-bomber/. Richard Whittle, “Navy Refueling Drone May Tie Into F-35s,” Breaking Defense, March 22, 2016, http://breakingdefense.com/2016/03/navy-refueling-drone-may-tie-into-f-35s-f-22s/.
61
2013 Remotely Piloted Aircraft Vector: United States Air Force, “RPA Vector: Vision and Enabling Concepts, 2013–2038,” February 17, 2014, http://www.defenseinnovationmarketplace.mil/resources/USAF-RPA_VectorVisionEnablingConcepts2013-2038_ForPublicRelease.pdf.
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cultural resistance to combat drones: Jeremiah Gertler, “History of the Navy UCLASS Program Requirements: In Brief,” Congressional Research Service, August 3, 2015, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R44131.pdf.
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uninhabited combat aerial vehicle: “UCAV” specifically refers to the air vehicle whereas “UCAS” refers to the entire system: air vehicle, communications links, and ground control station. In practice, the terms are often used interchangeably.
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China has developed anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles: Kelley Sayler, “Red Alert: The Growing Threat to U.S. Aircraft Carriers,” Center for a New American Security, Washington, DC, February 22, 2016, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/red-alert-the-growing-threat-to-u-s-aircraft-carriers. Jerry Hendrix, “Retreat from Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation,” Center for a New American Security, Washington, DC, October 19, 2015, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/retreat-from-range-the-rise-and-fall-of-carrier-aviation.
62
Sea power advocates outside the Navy: Sam LaGrone, “Compromise Defense Bill Restricts Navy UCLASS Funds,” USNI News, December 3, 2014, https://news.usni.org/2014/12/03/compromise-defense-bill-restricts-navy-uclass-funds. Sam LaGrone, “McCain Weighs in on UCLASS Debate, Current Navy Requirements ‘Strategically Misguided,’” USNI News, March 24, 2015, https://news.usni.org/2015/03/24/mccain-weighs-in-on-uclass-debate-current-navy-requirements-strategically-misguided.
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the Navy is deferring any plans for a future UCAV: Sydney J. Freedburg, Jr., “Navy Hits Gas On Flying Gas Truck, CBARS: Will It Be Armed?” Breaking Defense, March 11, 2016, http://breakingdefense.com/2016/03/navy-hits-gas-on-flying-gas-truck-cbars-will-it-be-armed/.
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a range of only 67 nautical miles: 67 nautical miles equals 124 kilometers.
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can fly up to 500 nautical miles: 500 nautical miles equals 930 kilometers.
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three New York Times articles: John Markoff, “Fearing Bombs That Can Pick Whom to Kill,” New York Times, November 11, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/science/weapons-directed-by-robots-not-humans-raise-ethical-questions.html?_r=0. John Markoff, “Report Cites Dangers of Autonomous Weapons,” New York Times, February 26, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/technology/report-cites-dangers-of-autonomous-weapons.html. John Markoff, “Arms Control Groups Urge Human Control of Robot Weaponry,” New York Times, April 11, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/technology/arms-control-groups-urge-human-control-of-robot-weaponry.html.
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“artificial intelligence outside human control”: Markoff, “Fearing Bombs That Can Pick Whom to Kill.”
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“an autonomous weapons arms race”: Ibid.
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“LRASM employed precision routing and guidance”: Lockheed Martin, “Long Range Anti-Ship Missile,” http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/LRASM/overview.html (accessed on May 15, 2017).
63
Lockheed’s description of LRASM: Lockheed Martin, “Long Range Anti-Ship Missile,” as of October 20, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20141020231650/http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/LRASM.html.
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“The semi-autonomous guidance capability gets LRASM”: Lockheed Martin, “Long Range Anti-Ship Missile,” as of December 16, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20141216100706/http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/LRASM.html.
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video online that explains LRASM’s functionality: The video is no longer available on the Lockheed Martin website. Lockheed Martin, “LRASM: Long Range Anti-Ship Missile,” published on May 3, 2016, archived on December 15, 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20160504083941/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eFGPIg05q0&gl=US&hl=en.
68
literally wrote the textbook: Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3rd ed. (Boston: Pearson, 2009).
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“offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control”: “Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter From AI & Robotics Researchers,” Future of Life Institute, https://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/.
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“The challenge for the teams now”: DARPA, “FLA Program Takes Flight,” DARPA.mil, February 12, 2016, http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2016-02-12.
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“FLA technologies could be especially useful”: Ibid.
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Lee explained: Daniel Lee, email to author, June 3, 2016.
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> “localization, mapping, obstacle detection”: Ibid.
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“applications to search and rescue”: Vijay Kumar, email to author, June 3, 2016.
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“foreshadow planned uses”: Stuart Russell, “Take a Stand on AI Weapons,” Nature.com, May 27, 2015, http://www.nature.com/news/robotics-ethics-of-artificial-intelligence-1.17611.
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wasn’t “cleanly directed only at”: Stuart Russell, interview, June 23, 2016.
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“You can make small, lethal quadcopters”: Ibid.
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“if you were wanting to develop autonomous weapons”: Ibid.
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“certainly think twice” about working on: Ibid.
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“collaborative autonomy—the capability of groups”: DARPA, “Collaborate Operations in Denied Environments,” DARPA.com, http://www.darpa.mil/program/collaborative-operations-in-denied-environment.
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“just as wolves hunt in coordinated packs”: DARPA, “Establishing the CODE for Unmanned Aircraft to Fly as Collaborative Teams,” DARPA.com, http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2015-01-21.
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“multiple CODE-enabled unmanned aircraft”: Ibid.
72
Graphics on DARPA’s website: DARPA, “Collaborate Operations in Denied Environments.”
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“contested electromagnetic environments”: Ibid.
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methods of communicating stealthily: Sayler, “Talk Stealthy to Me.” Amy Butler, “5th-To-4th Gen Fighter Comms Competition Eyed In Fiscal 2015,” AWIN First, June 18, 2014, http://aviationweek.com/defense/5th-4th-gen-fighter-comms-competition-eyed-fiscal-2015.
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56K dial-up modem: DARPA, “Broad Agency Announcement: Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) Program,” DARPA-BAA-14-33, April 25, 2014, 13, available at https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=2f2733be59230cf2ddaa46498fe5765a&tab=core&_cview=1.
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“under a single person’s supervisory control”: DARPA, “Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment.”
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A May 2016 video released online: DARPA, “Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE): Test of Phase 1 Human-System Interface,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8AFuiO6ZSs&feature=youtu.be.
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under the supervision of the human commander: DARPA, “Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE): Phase 2 Concept Video,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPBuE6fMBnE.
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The CODE website says: DARPA, “Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment.”
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“Provide a concise but comprehensive targeting chipset”: DARPA, “Broad Agency Announcement: Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) Program,” 10.
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“Autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems shall be”: Department of Defense, “Department of Defense Directive Number 3000.09: Autonomy in Weapon Systems,” November 21, 2012, http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/300009p.pdf, 2.
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approval to build and deploy autonomous weapons: Ibid, 7–8.
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“providing multi-modal sensors”: DARPA, “Broad Agency Announcement: Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) Program,” 6.
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Stuart Russell said that he found these projects concerning: Stuart Russell, interview, June 23, 2016.
5 Inside the Puzzle Palace: Is the Pentagon Building Autonomous Weapons?
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Klingon Bird of Prey: Bob Work, “Remarks at the ACTUV ‘Seahunter’ Christening Ceremony,” April 7, 2016, https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/779197/remarks-at-the-actuv-seahunter-christening-ceremony/.
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“fighting ship”: Ibid.
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“You can imagine anti-submarine warfare pickets”: Ibid.
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“Our fundamental job”: Bradford Tousley, interview, April 27, 2016.
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“That final decision is with humans, period”: Ibid.
81
“Until the machine processors equal or surpass”: Ibid.
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“Groups of platforms that are unmanned”: Ibid.
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“We’re using physical machines and electronics”: Ibid.
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“As humans ascend to the higher-level”: Ibid.
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“We expect that there will be jamming”: Ibid.
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“I think that will be a rule of engagement-dependent decision”: Ibid.
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“If [CODE] enables software”: Ibid.
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“In a target-dense environment”: DARPA, “Target Recognition and Adaptation in Contested Environments,” http://www.darpa.mil/program/trace.
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“develop algorithms and techniques”: DARPA, “Broad Agency Announcement: Target Recognition and Adaptation in Contested Environments (TRACE),” DARPA-BAA-15-09, December 1, 2014, 6, https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=087d9fba51700a89d154e8c9d9fdd93d&tab=core&_cview=1.
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Deep neural networks: Alex Krizhevsky, Ilya Sutskever, and Geoffrey E. Hinton, “ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks,” https://papers.nips.cc/paper/4824-imagenet-classification-with-deep-convolutional-neural-networks.pdf.
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over a hundred layers: Christian Szegedy et al., “Going Deeper With Convolutions,” https://www.cs.unc.edu/~wliu/papers/GoogLeNet.pdf.
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error rate of only 4.94 percent: Richard Eckel, “Microsoft Researchers’ Algorithm Sets ImageNet Challenge Milestone,” Microsoft Research Blog, February 10, 2015, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/microsoft-researchers-algorithm-sets-imagenet-challenge-milestone/. Kaiming He et al., “Delving Deep into Rectifiers: Surpassing Human-Level Performance on ImageNet Classification,” https://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.01852.pdf.
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estimated 5.1 percent error rate: Olga Russakovsky et al., “ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge,” January 20, 2015, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.0575.pdf.
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3.57 percent rate: Kaiming He et al., “Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition,” December 10, 2015, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.03385v1.pdf.
6 Crossing the Threshold: Approving Autonomous Weapons
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delineation of three classes of systems: Department of Defense, “Department of Defense Directive Number 3000.09.”
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“minimize the probability and consequences”: Ibid, 1.
91
“We haven’t had anything that was even remotely close”: Frank Kendall, interview, November 7, 2016.
91
“We had an automatic mode”: Ibid.
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“relatively soon”: Ibid.
91
“sort through all that”: Ibid.
91
“Are you just driving down”: Ibid.
92
“other side of the equation”: Ibid.
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“a reasonable question to ask”: Ibid.
92
“where technology supports it”: Ibid.
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“principles and obey them”: Ibid.
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“Automation and artificial intelligence are”: Ibid.
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Work explained in a 2014 monograph: Robert O. Work and Shawn Brimley, “20YY: Preparing for War in the Robotic Age,” Center for a New American Security, January 2014, 7–8, http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNAS_20YY_WorkBrimley.pdf.
95
“We will not delegate lethal authority”: Bob Work, interviewed by David Ignatius, “Securing Tomorrow,” March 30, 2016, https://static.dvidshub.net/media/video/1603/DOD_103167280/DOD_103167280-512x288-442k.mp4. Comments on au
tonomy start around 29:00.
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“We might be going up against”: Ibid.
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“our potential competitors may not”: Bob Work, interviewed by August Cole, “Global Strategy Forum,” Atlantic Council, http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/events/webcasts/2016-global-strategy-forum. Comments starting around 38:00.
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“We, the United States, have had”: Bob Work, interview, June 22, 2016.
97
“We are moving to a world”: Ibid.
97
“The thing that people worry about”: Ibid.
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“same determination that we have right now”: Ibid.
98
“What is your comfort level on target”: Ibid.
98
“I hear people say”: Ibid.
98
Work contrasted these narrow AI systems: Ibid.
99
“People are going to use AI”: Ibid.
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Schuette made it clear to me: Larry Schuette, interview, May 5, 2016.
100
“The man pushes a button”: Ibid.
100
“History is full of innovations”: Ibid.
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“We’ve had these debates before”: Ibid.
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“EXECUTE AGAINST JAPAN”: Joel Ira Holwitt, “ ‘EXECUTE AGAINST JAPAN’: Freedom-of-the-Seas, The U.S. Navy, Fleet Submarines, and the U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, 1919–1941,” Dissertation, Ohio State University, 2005, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/osu1127506553/inline.
101
“Is it December eighth or December sixth?”: Larry Schuette, interview, May 5, 2016.
7 World War R: Robotic Weapons around the World
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“A growing number of countries”: The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Turkey. Fuhrmann and Horowitz, “Droning On: Explaining the Proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.”