ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND WAR FROM A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE. ARE IHL RULES ENOUGH TODAY?

Abstract

This Final Degree Project analyses the current national, regional and international laws and norms governing the uses of Artificial Intelligence in weapons and warfare, with a particular look to lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). Several case-examples have been exposed to demonstrate the unregulated use of AI weapons in conflicts, warfare and hybrid war. Also, different regulations have been analysed to determine the compromise of the international community and state actors on this area, and the positioning of countries and international organizations towards the development and use of AI, concretely in warfare and LAWS. Important gaps on current laws have been observed at every level (international, regional and national), with scarce mention to the concrete uses and limitations of AI in warfare, and most of them with no mention to LAWS. In conclusion, there are no international, regional or national regulations focused solely on the use of AI weapons, instead, they are framed and included in recommendations on generic uses of AI. This lack of regulations benefits an uncontrolled and irregular development of weapons and perpetuates the threat that AI weaponization presents to human and fundamental rights.