06 avr » Éthique, défense, sécurité et agents artificiels autonomes », Jean-Gabriel Ganascia (Paris 6), Jeudi 24 Avril 2014

Éthique, défense, sécurité et agents artificiels autonomes

Jean-Gabriel Ganascia (Paris 6, Pierre et Marie Curie)

Les agents artificiels autonomes prennent une part de plus en plus grande dans la vie quotidienne, que ce soit dans le monde physique, avec la robotique manufacturière, la robotique de service ou les drones, ou dans le monde virtuel, avec les « bots », les « malwares » (maliciels en français), etc. S’ils procurent puissance et confort, ces agents sont aussi source de nouvelles vulnérabilités. Il n’y a donc rien d’étonnant à ce qu’ils acquièrent de plus en plus d’importance dans le monde de la défense et de la sécurité. Après avoir rapidement passé en revue les applications militaires et policières actuelles de ces agents, nous verrons en quoi on peut évoquer des questions d’ordre éthique à propos de leur comportement. Nous montrerons ensuite comment approcher la programmation de ces agents en s’inspirant des cadres conceptuels posés par certaines approches philosophiques de l’éthique. Ce faisant, il se trouve que la notion de conflit, centrale pour l’éthique, provoque des incohérences logiques que doivent surmonter les programmes d’intelligence artificiel qui supervisent ces agents. Cela conduit à l’introduction de formalismes de représentation non monotones que l’on évoquera. Nous montrerons ensuite, comment ces modélisations ont pu être mises à profit par des roboticiens comme Ron Arkins pour légitimer la réalisation de « robots soldats » qui se substitueraient aux hommes dans les théâtres d’opérations. Nous conclurons en indiquant les limitations intrinsèques de ces approches et en proposant d’autres perspectives qui précisent la part des agents artificiels dans la prise de décision.

Discutantes : Amélie Ferey, Marine Guillaume

Jeudi 24 Avril, 17.00-19.00

Salle du Conseil, Sciences Po, 13, rue de l’Université – 5ème étage

02 juin« The War to End War », Oona Hathaway (Yale), Mardi 25 Juin 2013

Oona Hathaway (Yale), The War to End War

Attached are portions of a book manuscript that I am writing with my colleague, Professor Scott Shapiro. I have provided you with the introduction, which attempts to set the stage and preview the argument of the book, and the fourth chapter. Those who are pressed for time should focus on the introduction alone.
The first three chapters of the book (which are not included here) describe what we call the Old World Order—a system that relied on war as the linchpin of law. The first chapter centers on Grotius and the legal order he established. The second chapter shows that war was a source of legal redress and legal rights. The legal rights to territory, people, and goods were decided by war—even one that was entirely unjust. The third chapter examines what followed from the legality of war and of conquest and how those rules in turn shaped the international legal system that persisted for hundreds of years.
The second part of the book—also comprised of three chapters, of which I have given you the first—tells the story of what we argue is a deep shift in the legal meaning of war. It describes the end of the Old World Order and the beginning of something fundamentally new. This shift, we argue, has consequences not just for states’ recourse to war, but for international law and the international system as a whole.
The third part of the book will examine our modern international legal system and the ways in which international law can and cannot shape state behavior. This part of the book will draw on our article on “outcasting” as a mechanism for enforcing international law (Hathaway & Shapiro, Outcasting: The Enforcement of Domestic and International Law, Yale Law Journal (2012)).

Discussant: Ariel Colonomos (CNRS, Sciences Po), Christopher Kutz (Berkeley Univ.)

Mardi 25 Juin, 17.00-19.00
Salle Jean Monnet, Ceri

15 avr« The Morality of Drone Warfare », Jennifer Welsh, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, Mercredi 24 Avril 2013

Jennifer Welsh (Oxford Univ.), The Morality of Drone Warfare

This paper examines the impact of the increased use of drones in warfare, and their particular role in the practice of targeted killing. The preliminary section challenges some of the commonly held myths about drone technology, and argues that weaponized drones remain a ‘human heavy’ and intimate means of killing. In the second section, I demonstrate that targeted killing through drones has significant implications for what Just War Theory calls jus ad bellum (the legitimacy of engaging in war), and jus in bello (the legitimacy of acts taken during the conduct of war). With respect to JAB, drones have the potential to change states’ conception of, and adherence to, the notion of ‘last resort’ (i.e., that the use of force, because of its lethality and consequences, must only be contemplated after other means have proved unworkable). More specifically, they both raise the threshold for engaging in a large-scale war (since they offer an alternative means of meeting a threat), and encourage relaxation of the ‘last resort’ criterion when contemplating their use (since they are a means short of full-scale war). With respect to JIB, drones offer a better prospect of meeting the requirement of non-combatant immunity. But this in turn has had a morally relevant effect: the U.S. government’s faith in drones’ proportionality and discrimination induces the U.S. to undertake riskier strikes, thereby increasing the likelihood of the collateral damage drones are celebrated for preventing. Moreover, the U.S. government’s implementation of the discrimination principle in the context of counter-terrorism (particularly in ‘signature strikes’), has led to questionable methods for defining a ‘combatant’, which in practice has meant that those who the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) might define as civilians have been killed in drone strikes. This suggests that drone warfare may not actually eliminate risk, but rather transfer much of it from one society to another – raising ethical questions about the legitimacy of such a quest for ‘low cost’ warfare. In my concluding section, I will argue that targeted killing through drones has observable and morally relevant effects not only on the people and societies that are targeted, but also on the society sponsoring the killing (particularly if it is a constitutional democracy) and the individual operating the drone.

Discutant: Christopher Kutz (Berkeley University)
Salle Jean Monnet: 17.00-19.00