Automation, Trust, Responsibility

Abstract

While the previous four logics provided data, taxonomies, simulation, and matching components to the process of decision-making, the execution of the algorithm-driven decision had been managed by humans. The fifth algorithmic logic builds upon the previous four and proposes automated and autonomous decision-making in the context of warfare. War systems are increasingly seen as entirely unmanned and thus autonomous. The processes of automation of war require the articulation of three major interconnected processes as they relate to trust. This chapter traces these processes by illustrating the ways in which soldiers were seen as digital technology at the beginning of the Iraq War and soon became assisted by automatic robots. As the war progressed, drones became semiautonomous weapon systems. In the aftermath of the Iraq War, the automation of war has continued, and as of 2020, we now have documented the first case of an automated weapon system in the case study of the KARGU drone attack on Libya. This shift toward automation has had significant biopolitical implications resulting from algorithmic miscalculations. Automation is thus intimately linked to discourses of truth and trust.