Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to ensure meaningful human control is retained over decisions to use lethal force by weapons systems that incorporate artificial intelligence.

We are clear that human responsibility and accountability must always be retained in decisions about the use of force, and that existing international humanitarian law provides a robust framework for ensuring this. There must be context-appropriate human involvement in weapons which identify, select and attack targets. This could mean some form of real-time human supervision, or control exercised through the setting of a system’s operational parameters.

Use of AI within MOD is governed by our Ambitious, Safe, Responsible policy and the Dependable AI JSP 936, which require AI systems to be developed and used in a manner that is in line with our longstanding and robust legal, safety and regulatory compliance regimes. Responsible AI Senior Officers make sure that their organisation has the right processes, policies and escalation methods in place to demonstrate that they have addressed the considerations arising under each of the AI ethical principles in respect to AI-enabled systems.