Ramin's Space: Biden and Harris should rein in drone warfare and rethink America's view of war
I’m already anticipating the relief I’ll feel when Joe Biden is sworn in as president in less than 24 hours, and Donald Trump finally leaves. It’s been a stressful, exhausting, and frustrating four years. But it’s already clear that much will change under Biden, both with the tone and behavior of the president and with a wide swath of policies.
But a few things have bipartisan support, and drone warfare is unfortunately one of them. The US’s drone program began under George W. Bush, dramatically expanded under Obama, continued under Trump (infamously including the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani one year ago), and likely will continue with Biden. But someone targeted for “extrajudicial killing” by drone has no appeal or defense, even if they’re American citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, killed during Obama’s second term. Despite claims of precision warfare, drone strikes have frequently killed civilians and destroyed infrastructure in at least five countries, and they’re often based on flawed or limited intelligence.
I understand the appeal though. Americans don’t have an appetite for deploying yet more troops to yet more countries. Drones are harder to spot than bombers and harder to shoot down, and they can provide on-the-fly imagery, making them superior to missiles launched from afar.
But regardless of the weapon used, it’s all too easy to assassinate people on some kill list at the touch of a button, based on a few blurry photos or comments from a possibly unreliable source, while assuming all casualties were involved in terrorism. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should significantly rein in the drone program, which should be used only sparingly, if at all, with clear rules and independent oversight. We should also ensure that artificial intelligence-piloted drones don’t become a reality. Military drones are dangerous in and of themselves, and they’re a potent symbol of a callousness toward human life.
I’m even more concerned now that drones are being designed with a mind of their own. Terminator-style killer robots aren't here yet, and we should keep it that way. Humans are always still in the loop with today’s weapons, including in drone strikes, but the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems puts us on a path toward fully autonomous killing machines.
Biden’s foreign policy and national security cabinet will likely include two or three people from a consulting firm called WestExec, which has been heavily involved with Project Maven — an initiative to use AI with drones on the battlefield — and other Silicon Valley-Pentagon collaborations. One of those people, Avril Haines, was directly involved in Obama’s drone program and was nominated by Biden for Director of National Intelligence. (The others are Antony Blinken, nominated for Secretary of State, and Michèle Flournoy, considered for Defense Secretary.) If nothing changes, efforts to make such weapons more autonomous will continue, and any possible benefits of their development are heavily outweighed by their risks.
Many military contractors are already eyeing lucrative Pentagon contracts by developing AI systems for drones, including General Atomics — which is heardquartered in San Diego, where I live — for their Reaper drone. One of WestExec’s clients is Shield AI, another company based here, and they’re designing the Nova quadcopter to operate in combat missions, where it would run on AI in places without GPS or communications, which are places where a drone’s mission can’t be aborted. These are the kinds of aircraft that line a slippery slope toward increasingly autonomous weapons, something we should avoid at all costs.
President Biden’s administration, tech companies like Microsoft and Palantir, and military contractors should follow the lead of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The international coalition argues that before fully autonomous weapons ever get built — whether we’re talking about flying drones, ground robots, or even underwater ones — governments should preemptively ban them. All weapons should have human checks and controls, including from experts outside the Biden administration, so that a person can’t simply be selected and targeted for execution by the president and their aides. It’s not hard to imagine autonomous killing drones, complete with face and voice recognition software, proliferating and being acquired by dictators and militia groups.
Critical voices within the tech sector have already emerged. Leading figures at major companies like Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft, signed on to a letter opposing a military AI arms race. Workers at Microsoft are also resisting their employer’s work on weapons development for the US Army. And Google hasn’t completely cut ties with the Defense Department after appearing to withdraw from Project Maven, despite criticism within and outside the company. Since Google and Facebook employees already joined Biden’s transition team, we know they’ll play a role in the new administration. The same goes for the weapons industry, since a third of Biden’s Pentagon transition team came from those companies or think tanks funded by them. But this also means Biden has influence over the tech and military industries, too.
President Obama and VP Biden had some major foreign policy successes, especially with Iran and Cuba, but unfortunately drone warfare is a big part of their legacy, too. With Biden moving back into the White House tomorrow, it’s time to rectify that.
Looking back: Almost six years ago, I wrote my first major op-ed, for the San Francisco Chronicle, about nuclear weapons on "hair-trigger alert." Some of these missiles rely on computer systems, and in the past false alarms have almost inadvertently led to a launch, which surely would've ignited a war. Neither Democrats nor Republicans have substantially changed our approach even to the world’s most destructive weapons.
More about me: I'm an astrophysicist turned science writer and freelance journalist based in San Diego. You can find me at my website, raminskibba.net and on Twitter @raminskibba. I'm also former president of the San Diego Science Writers Association (SANDSWA) and on the board of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), though the opinions I express are mine alone. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you're welcome to subscribe too.