Weapons

Don’t fear the robopocalypse: Autonomous weapons expert Paul Scharre

Paul Scharre, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, has pretty good credentials when it comes to autonomous weapons. If you’ve ever heard of Directive 3000.09, which established the Defense Department’s guidelines for autonomous weapons, Scharre led the working group that drafted it. And he’s got a relevant book due out in April: Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War.

For what it’s worth, Scharre also led a Defense Department team that established guidelines on directed energy technologies. And another on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Prior to his time in the Pentagon, he served as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan and as a civil affairs specialist in Iraq.

When Scharre agreed to a Bulletin interview about autonomous weapons, the result was an informed, passionate discussion of autonomous weapons’ utility, the likelihood that they’ll be deployed in combat, and what opponents of “killer robots” get wrong—so very, very wrong—when they argue for a ban on autonomous weapons.