Comment by M.L. Cummings

There has been increasing debate over the use of autonomous weapons in the military, whether they should be banned for offensive uses, and even whether such technologies threaten human existence. As a former fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy, but also as a professor of robotics, I find these debates filled with emotional rhetoric, often made worse by media and activist organizations. [...] Proponents of a ban on offensive autonomous weapons advocate that any use of such weapons should not be beyond meaningful human control [7]. This language is problematic at best because there are widely varying interpretations of what meaning human control is. [...] I suggest that what is needed is not a call for meaningful human control of autonomous weapons but rather a focus on meaningful human certification of such systems.