In today's episode, we speak with Paul Barratt AO. Paul Barratt was an Australian Government insider for well over 30 years. He entered the Australian Public Service in 1966 when Australia began committing troops to the war in Vietnam. Originally trained in Physics, his early roles were to look at issues arising from China’s emergence as a Nuclear power. This brought him into the Intelligence Community through these years. As his career progressed, he worked in senior positions in the Department of Trade, Primary Industry and Energy and the Business Council of Australia. Through 1998 and 1999 he was Secretary for the Department of Defence. It was this role that put him at odds with the government causing him to leave his career and become a vocal critic of how Australia goes to war. He is the co-founder and current President of Australian for War Powers Reform. Their aim is to change the legal decision making path that allows the serving Prime Minister to commit Australia to war without any debate or oversight. He has been a high-end insider in most levels of the Public Service and Government and has seen the power entrusted to leaders misused. This he aims to change. This discussion centres on reforming this power from the ‘Captains Call’ to parliamentary oversight. The direction then focuses on the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons and how the decision to use them could be made.

Stay in Command. Banning Lethal Autonomous Weapons. An interview with Major General Michael Smith AO (ret). A commanders perspective Lethal Autonomous Weapons Interviewed by John Rodsted. In the ‘Stay in Command’ episode today, Maj. Gen. Mike Smith (Ret.) and John Rodsted from SafeGround explore the issues surrounding the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons with Artificial Intelligence. The mechanics, ethics and application of this new technology paints a disturbing picture of a world where machines decide who will live and who will die. Hear directly from a commander’s point of view. Major General Michael Smith (ret) has spent his life leading others. He graduated the Royal Military College Duntroon as Dux of his year in 1971 and since commanded everything from a Platoon to a Brigade. His 34 years in the Australian Army had him in some complicated situations. He served as Australia’s Defence Adviser in Cambodia in 1994, and throughout 1999 was Director-General for East Timor. He was appointed as the first Deputy Force Commander of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) in 2000-2001, in recognition he was awarded the Order of Australia. After the army he was CEO of the Australian Refugee Agency Austcare from 2002 until 2008. He then set up the Australian Civil-Military Centre from 2008 until 2011. He is the last President of the United Nations Association in Australia and is the current chair of the Gallipoli Scholarship. Michael holds a Masters degree in International Relations from the Australian National University, a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of New South Wales, and is a Fellow of the Australian College of Defence and Strategic Studies. He is also a graduate of the Cranlana leadership program and the Company Directors Course at the University of New England. Today we will talk about leadership both civil and military and the complexities of command responsibility in regards to Lethal Autonomous Weapons. Content in this episode: "The Buck Stops Here" [00:02:33] Legal Framework for Commanding in Conflict [00:05:10] Introducing Lethal Autonomous Weapons to the battlefields [00:08:54] The Nature of Wars [00:16:12] A Possible Arms Race? [00:21:51] Technology Development [00:25:05] The Fog of War Continues [00:32:43] Making The Decision To Go To War [00:38:27] Banning these Lethal Autonomous Weapons? [00:41:44]

Lethal Autonomous Weapons or Killer Robots are on the immediate horizon. Autonomous Weapons have attracted a large amount of investment and development from governments and militaries around the world. Their configurations are mixed from large unitary weapons to masses of networked micro-drones that can swarm a battlefield. Fully autonomous weapons are unique in that they find their own targets and decide who to kill and when. Once unleashed there is no meaningful human control. The simple imperative as stated by many developers of Artificial Intelligence and campaigners for a ban is, allowing a machine to decide who shall live and who shall die is a step too far and must be regulated against. This is a profound ethical issue and ‘Crosses a moral Rubicon’ to allow machines to kill autonomously. An international campaign to ban these weapons was created in 2012 and is working to create an internationally legally binding treaty that will deal with this weapon system. This campaign urges the Australian government and military to support a ban and commit to never develop lethal autonomous weapons Matilda Byrne is the Australian National Coordinator of the Stop Killer Robots Campaign. She holds a Master Degree in International Relations and is presently working on her PhD on International Security and Global Governance.

The idea that Lethal Autonomous Weapons, Killer Robots, could actually exist seems like Science Fiction as crept from the pages of a novel to reality. Mary Wareham is the Director of Advocacy for the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch in Washington DC. She spearheads an international effort to create an Internationally Legally Binding Treaty that would ban such a weapon system before they are fully developed and deployed. As the world makes great advances in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, a large application for such technologies focuses on the arms industry and military applications. Killer Robots that can independently make the decision to take human life without any human oversight is not in the future. It is here. This technology has many controversial aspects, least of all the issue of a machine can kill without oversight. Many developers of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are appalled that their inventions are being militarized in such a way. The debate on keeping control of such weapons is a moral and ethical one as well as a technological one. Wareham’s work is to create and lead the Stop Killer Robots Campaign that is working for the creation of an arms treaty that will control such weapons. She has worked in the world of arms control for many years and was a key player in the creation of the Treaty Banning Anti Personnel Landmines in 1997 and the Treaty that Banned Cluster Munitions in 2008. The International Campaign to ban Landmines was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. She joins John Rodsted from SafeGround in a conversation covering all aspects of Killer Robots and the work towards a treaty and how Australia is positioned in this discussion.