The Realities of Autonomous Weapons: Hedging a Hybrid Space of Fact and Fiction
Jascha Bareis, Thomas Christian Bächle · Bristol University Press eBooks · 2025
The development of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) has been subject to controversial discussions for years. AWS open up the hypothetical possibility of killing human populations without a human agent in the loop, which is the most extreme scenario that often lies at the centre of these debates. In order to draw a more complex picture, this volume engages with the current social, political, cultural, ethical and military arenas of autonomous weapons in popular culture, regulatory debates, journalism and research. It adheres to an analysis of the different meanings articulated across these domains that constitute the ‘realities of autonomous weapons’ and powerfully influence how we perceive and engage with these novel technologies. The introduction to this volume analyses how the current debates on AWS mediate between fact and fiction, and create a constant and complex dynamic between the actual technological developments and the potential futures that are associated with them. Paradoxically, it is exactly in this context of uncertainty – in which reality, imagination, possibility and fiction are conflated – that the full scope of this controversial technology becomes visible. In presenting six reflections, this chapter points to the various practices, discourses and techniques in which AWS are both represented and created to become technological, military and political realities.