Austria's UNGA Resolution; what Trump's 2nd term could mean for AWS; AI companies cozy up to the Pentagon; and more.

This is Anna Hehir, FLI’s Head of Military AI, and Maggie Munro, Communications Strategist, here with the seventh edition of The Autonomous Weapons Newsletter. We’re excited to bring you the news on autonomous weapons systems (AWS) at a pivotal moment, as the world comes to terms with whether algorithms should make life and death decisions (spoiler alert: most people are terrified).

With this monthly publication, we’re keeping our audience - primarily consisting of policymakers, journalists, and diplomats - up-to-date on the autonomous weapons space, covering policymaking efforts, weapons systems technology, and more.

That being said, if you have no idea what we’re talking about, check out autonomousweapons.org for our starter guide on the topic.

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Austria’s UN Resolution

Despite the quickly changing geopolitical landscape, a majority of UN states haven’t forgotten about the profound risks posed by the unregulated use and proliferation of autonomous weapons. This year at the UN General Assembly, Austria put forward another resolution to highlight the glaring legal void overshadowing the use of autonomous weapons.

Concretely, the resolution calls upon states, observers, civil society, industry, and the scientific community to attend two days of consultations in New York next year to address the Secretary-General’s call for states to negotiate a legally binding instrument by the end of 2025.

The rundown

States in favour: 161

Abstaining: 13 (China, Estonia, India, Iran, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine)

Against: 3 (Belarus, DPRK, Russia)

Co-sponsors: Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ireland, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Malawi, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Republic of Moldova, San Marino, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, State of Palestine, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago

For a more detailed breakdown, check out Automated Decision Research’s analysis.

What does this actually mean?

If you’ve been following international diplomatic discussions on autonomous weapons, you’ll know that the CCW in Geneva has failed to produce any meaningful, concrete action on the issue. This resolution offers an opportunity to break up the decade-long CCW grind, because it involves 66 extra states and changes up the venue. We don’t yet know what will come from the discussions but you can count on us being there.

What We’re Reading

📚 Lex International released a fascinating report (full report here; shorter presentation here) on how visuals related to autonomous weapons systems, especially those chosen for media coverage, impact public perception of AWS and reinforce inaccurate beliefs about them. From their excellent conclusion:

📚 In Bloomberg, a glimpse into what the second Trump administration might look like for U.S. defense policy - especially for defense tech (read: military AI).

📚 “Feministische Außenpolitik in der Praxis – Ein Weg zur Regulierung autonomer Waffensysteme” (“Feminist Foreign Policy in Practice – A Path Towards Regulating Autonomous Weapon Systems”), authored by Jennifer Menninger from WILPF Germany and Elvin Cetin from the German Peace Society (DFG-VK). Read a summary in English here and the full report in German here.

Overheard This Month

• “Removing the human component leaves only the cold logic of an artificial intelligence…and whatever errors may be hidden in that programmed logic.” - Writer Kyle Mizokami in Popular Mechanics.

• “The close relationships between Vance, Elon, and the defense VC and startup ecosystem will create a huge opening for real defense acquisition reform and widening of the number of players.” - Nathan Mintz, CEO of defense tech company CX2, in Forbes.

• “It's the first time there has been substantial evidence that PLA military experts in China have been systematically researching and trying to leverage the power of open-source LLMs, especially those of Meta, for military purposes.” - Sunny Cheung, associate fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, on reports that researchers from China’s People's Liberation Army used Meta’s Llama model to develop a military AI tool.

AWS in the News

→ AI companies’ Pentagon pivot: As the Washington Post reports, major AI companies Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta have all recently shifted policies or announced deals bringing their work closer to U.S. intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, despite some pushback from employees.

→ U.S. Military autonomy leaps ahead: The U.S. Military seems on track to soon add the first (publicly known) lethal autonomous weapon to its arsenal: an autonomous gun system known as Bullfrog. While built to take down fast-moving drones, and equipped to keep humans in the loop, the Bullfrog system is reportedly capable of operating fully autonomously and keeping humans entirely out of the kill chain.

→ Petit et péril: Defense manufacturer Thales has been demonstrating its new drone swarm innovations - including its TOUTATIS loitering munition (aka suicide drone), to be adopted by the French Army in 2025 - which they claim will introduce a new, “unparalleled level of autonomous operation in drone swarm deployments”.

→ Killer drone, to go: Anduril, another defense tech firm, has introduced their new Bolt-M autonomous “attack drone”, a loitering munition small enough to fit in a backpack and which doesn’t require a specialized operator. According to Anduril, Bolt-M “is equipped with advanced onboard AI/ML software to automate the flight behaviors required to find, track, and strike dynamic targets”. Pretty creepy, if you ask us.

Contact Us

For tips or feedback, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].