Representatives of the European Commission, the European Defence Agency, the European Parliament and the research community stressed on Tuesday 30 June the importance of maintaining human control over autonomous defence systems, at a conference in Brussels organised by the French Aerospace Lab (ONERA) entitled ‘The challenges of a changing battlefield: autonomous systems and human/machine collaboration for European defence’.
“Future military success will increasingly depend on the integration of humans, machines and information within a single operational ecosystem, capable of adapting to the speed of the battlefield,” explained Nathalie Guichard, Director of Research, Technology and Innovation at the European Defence Agency (EDA).
In her view, the key factor driving change is effective human/machine collaboration. “Our objective is not to replace humans, but to improve their decision-making and operational efficiency,” she said. Nathalie Guichard believes that “finding the right balance between human control and machine autonomy will be one of the major challenges for the armed forces of tomorrow”.
According to François Arbault, Director for Defence Policy and Industrial Programmes at the European Commission’s DG DEFIS, although AI can speed up decision-making, it must not replace human responsibility. “Humans must remain at the heart of the process; this is not a constraint or a capability, but an essential condition for trust in these systems,” he added. Mr Arbault emphasised that the Commission has already invested €3.3 billion in 180 projects involving autonomous systems and €230 million in 13 HMT projects.
“In Europe, we place humans at the heart of our concerns and we cannot accept that automated machines could make decisions without human control,” added MEP Nicolás Pascual de la Parte (EPP, Spanish). As technological developments are moving faster than legal responses and ethical considerations, he said pragmatism is required: “In other words, we cannot stifle the development of technologies through all our regulations, but at the same time, we must ensure that these new technologies remain under human control.”
According to ONERA Chairman and CEO Emmanuel Chiva, the question is how to develop and deploy AI effectively and responsibly. “In this respect, research and technology organisations have a crucial role to play in scaling up technological sovereignty,” he said, adding that this sovereignty will be built through research, innovation, breakthrough technologies and long-term investment.
François Arbault acknowledged that efforts in R&D needed to be stepped up and that “research must not be neglected”.
“We must therefore continue to show great ambition by funding defence research under the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF). (...) Autonomous systems and human/machine collaboration will remain a major strategic priority and must be integrated into the ECF,” he added. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)