Comment by Toby Walsh

I strongly believe that worrying about the definition of AWS is a distraction from making progress on regulating this space. Let me give an analogy. Nuclear weapons are never defined in any UN treaty regarding the proliferation or prohibition of nuclear weapons. This is a good thing since these treaties will cover nuclear weapon systems still to be invented. I suspect it is likely too difficult to define autonomy precisely, or to define such terms in diplomatic discussion today like “meaningful human control”, especially if we wish these definitions to be future proof. As with nuclear weapons, an implicit and informal definition of autonomous weapon systems will arise out of international consensus.