Topic: Autonomous Weapon Systems
Country: Haiti
Delegate Name: Mahah Naveed
School: Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Haiti position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
It is Haiti's view that the main issue with autonomous weapons system is the misuse of such weapons, and the targeting system of autonomous weapons. Autonomous weapons in the possession of irresponsible parties or in the possession of people who do not intend to use them for the good of humanity, are a dangerous thing. Such weapons can be given questionable orders, and they will complete their assigned tasks without questioning the morals of such tasks. Also, if autonomous weapons were told to target dangerous people, how would they know who has ill intent and who is an innocent civilian? Even if an AI were given a program that could distinguish a dangerous person from a civilian, that program may not always be accurate, and mistakes by autonomous weapon systems could result in the death of an innocent.
The committee should find ways to regulate the targeting system of an autonomous weapon. The committee should also find a way to regulate the creation and use autonomous weapons, so that they cannot be used by people with ill intentions. One way the targeting system of autonomous weapons can be regulated is that they could be designed to require a human operator's permission before engaging with a person. This would prevent an AI from attacking innocent civilians because their program identified them as dangerous individuals. There should also be a system or a group of people that determines which things autonomous should and should not be used for. Such a system could prevent autonomous weapons from being used for the wrong reasons. Other countries are moving to ban fully autonomous weapons that don't receive human input before attacking humans. These countries include the United States.
