AWS 2024 conference launches in Vienna

The international conference "Humanity at the Crossroads: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Challenge of Regulation" (AWS) launched at the Hofburg Palace in the Austrian capital Vienna, Monday, with the attendance of more than 140 countries, international organizations, and civil society. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed in a message delivered in the two-day conference that lethal autonomous weapons systems are politically unacceptable and morally repugnant and urged countries to agree to ban their development, deployment and use. In a statement, the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the increased autonomy of weapons through the introduction of artificial intelligence will fundamentally transform armed conflicts, therefore Autonomous weapons systems (AWS) raise profound questions from a legal, ethical, humanitarian and security perspective. Humanity is at a crossroads and must come together to address the fundamental challenge of regulating these weapons, added the statement. In the first-ever UN General Assembly resolution on lethal autonomous weapons systems in 2023, an overwhelming majority of States underlined the urgent need for the international community to address the challenges and concerns raised by autonomous weapons systems. Austria therefore organized this conference in the hope of further advancing the debate on an international regulation of AWS, explained the statement. The conference will deal with the development of technology and its trends with regard to autonomous lethal weapons and how AWS relates to broader issues surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) in the military sector and large-scale data processing, and its implications for international security. It will also address the use of AWS and assess the importance of human decision-making to make moral and legal judgments before using force and holding people accountable under international law. The Austrian Foreign Ministry's statement stressed that the occurrence of an "independent" arms race, the incr easing challenges of military confrontations, and the spread of non-state armed groups and terrorists, demonstrate the urgent need to make progress in organizing these weapons and establishing controls over them. Source: Kuwait News Agency