[Air-L] Conference: Imaginations of Autonomy - On Humans, AI-Based Weapon Systems and Responsibility at Machine Speed; Paderborn University, 22-24 May 2024

[Jens Hälterlein]

Dear colleagues,

We are delighted to announce that the conference *"Imaginations of 
Autonomy - On Humans, AI-Based Weapon Systems and Responsibility at 
Machine Speed"* will take place from Wednesday 22nd to Friday 24th May 
2024 at Paderborn University, Germany. A brief description of the 
conference follows below.

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Autonomous Weapon Systems**(AWS) exhibit a high degree of automation. 
The movement of vehicles and the identification, selection and killing 
of targets are claimed as processes that machines can perform 
‘autonomously’ or even ‘responsibly’ without human intervention. 
However, AWS depend on (human-made) material, technical and 
organizational infrastructures including big data and ‘self-learning’, 
opaque machine learning algorithms. As complex human/machine 
configurations, AWS exhibit agency beyond the clear-cut realms of 
machines and humans - though responsibility can only stay with humans.

 From this perspective, the claim of responsible AI as well as the 
autonomy of weapon systems can be seen as an epistemo-technoscientific 
as well as politically-driven imagination. However, this imagined 
autonomy has very real effects. It renews and strengthens promises of 
‘fighting at machine speed’, and performing ‘precision strikes’. These 
technoscientific promises are articulated by politicians and the 
military; they drive hegemonic global politics and devalue discourses of 
and investments in diplomacy, conflict management and peace research. 
They legitimize arms contracts and trade as well as military research 
and development. Problematic effects of high automation such as 
automation bias, opaqueness of the systems and susceptibility to error 
are often overseen, underestimated or even made invisible.

Against this background, the first conference of the competence network 
/Meaningful Human Control – Autonomous Weapon System between Regulation 
and Reflexion, led by Paderborn University and situated at five 
universities,/ aims to develop new approaches to understanding military 
human/machine configurations and their distributed, situational agency. 
Thereby, we aim to foster interdisciplinary dialogue, include 
non-Western positions more strongly in the debate and expand the scope 
with artistic perspectives and a robotic performance.

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Please find attached the preliminary programme.

Participation in the conference is free of charge. However, we ask for a 
registration by 29.4.2024 at:

https://meaningfulhumancontrol.de/registration/

Best wishes,

Jens Hälterlein and Jutta Weber


-- 
Dr. Jens Hälterlein (he/him/his)
University Paderborn
Department of Media Studies
Warburger Straße 100
D- 33098 Paderborn

Tel: +495251603346

Project: Meaningful Human Control. Autonomous Weapon Systems between Regulation and Reflexion (MEHUCO)

Twitter: @JensHalterlein
https://zenmem.academia.edu/JensHälterlein