Defense Primer: U.S. Policy on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems

Abstract

Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) are a special class of weapon systems that use sensor suites and computer algorithms to independently identify a target and employ an onboard weapon system to engage and destroy the target without manual human control of the system. Although these systems are not yet in widespread development, it is believed they would enable military operations in communications-degraded or -denied environments in which traditional systems may not be able to operate.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 15, 2023
Accession Number
AD1203040

Entities

People

  • Kelley M . Sayler

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Autonomous Systems
  • Autonomous Weapons
  • Autonomy
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Directives
  • Geographic Regions
  • Governments
  • Human-Machine Interaction
  • Law
  • Military Operations
  • Munitions
  • Test And Evaluation
  • United States
  • United States Government
  • Weapon Systems
  • Weapons
  • Weapons Effects

Readers

  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Strategic Security Studies

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs