Steven Umbrello is the Managing Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. As one of our Stiftung Südtiroler Sparkasse Global Fellows, he will give insights into his research on the ethics and legality of autonomous weapon systems (AWS).

The international debate on the ethics and legality of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) as well as the call for a ban are primarily focused on the nebulous concept of fully autonomous AWS. More specifically, on AWS that are capable of target selection and engagement without human supervision or control. Steven Umbrello will argue that such a conception of autonomy is divorced both from military planning and decision-making operations as well as the design requirements that govern AWS engineering and subsequently the tracking and tracing of moral responsibility. To do this, the Stiftung Südtiroler Sparkasse Global Fellow will try to marry two different levels of meaningful human control (MHC), termed levels of abstraction, to couple military operations with design ethics. In doing so, he argues that the contentious notion of ‘full’ autonomy is not problematic under this two-tiered understanding of MHC.

Public Lecture

Meaningful Human Control: A Solution of Military and Industry

29.06.2022 | 11.00 CET