It's going to be interesting to see how the circle is squared regards defending against autonomous weaponry. There's probably a large design space of offensive autonomous weapons that could only effectively be countered by a system with no human in the control loop. If the design / use of autonomous defensive systems is also prohibited, that would give an overwhelming advantage to any aggressor willing to defy any such a ban on offensive systems. If they're not banned, then the difference between a weapon designed to auto-target other weapons and one designed to auto-target humans is so blurry as to be virtually indistinguishable in terms of verifiable arms control.
> If they're not banned, then the difference between a weapon designed to auto-target other weapons and one designed to auto-target humans is so blurry as to be virtually indistinguishable in terms of verifiable arms control.
There's no such thing as purely defensive weapon. I don't remember who said it, but I recall a quote that went similar to: "if your weapon can shoot enemy planes over your cities, it can just as easily shoot enemy planes over their cities".
That's much easier to do if you develop a mobile turret from the beginning. The idea is that there are technologies which are fairly harder to use offensively than others.
I’m pretty sure banning autonomous defensive weapons won’t happen because we already have them deployed. The Phalanx CIWS mounted on US Warships has a fully autonomous mode where it will fire on targets automatically.
It is there already but limited. Hospital ships are antsy about missles because CIWS are still considered weapons and they can't have them and at least one missle strike occurred at harbor because turning it on there would lead to unacceptable collateral damage to their backstop.
