AI weapons are here: a primer
Fri 17 April 2026
16:00
Free
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AI offers great potential to progress human welfare, but it also poses significant threats to privacy, security, global stability, and human rights if not managed responsibly. While regulating AI across all sectors is a complex, long-term goal, there is one application where these abstract dangers become terrifyingly concrete: autonomous weapons systems (AWS).
AI weapons (or autonomous weapons systems) represent one of the most dangerous manifestations of AI, where all the general concerns culminate in a machine with the power to take lives. And this is a concern that has been echoed by scores of AI experts over the years, who are arguing that regulating AWS is a strategic and necessary precursor to the challenge of broader AI governance. Unlike abstract debates on AI in social media or employment, AWS involves the ultimate stake: human life.
Right now, governments are working to develop rules for how to regulate autonomous weapons systems to ensure they comply with the laws of war and human rights obligations as well as prevent an unregulated global AI arms race.
The speakers will talk about what the status of AI weapons is, who is developing them, and what consequences these weapons will have, as well as where the world is in the efforts to regulate these weapons.
Sponsored by Lex International Fund.
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Anna Hehir
Anna Hehir is the Head of Military AI Governance at the Future of Life Institute, working to address the risks that autonomous weapons pose to international peace, security and governance. Over the past decade, Anna has worked in foreign policy, international governance and advocacy in Europe, Australia and North Africa. She previously worked for six years at the Australian Government’s Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade as a Policy Officer at the Australian Embassy in France. Anna has also worked at the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs in Geneva, and has managed advocacy campaigns for the Fair Internship Initiative and the Oaktree Foundation. Anna holds a Bachelor of Arts in French and Modern Standard Arabic from the University of Melbourne (Australia), and a Master’s degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action from Sciences Po (Paris School of International Affairs).
Richard Lennane
Elke Schwarz
Elke Schwarz is Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), an MA in Conflict Studies from the War Studies Department at King’s College London (KCL) and a Bachelor in Business Studies from Belmont University (USA). Prior to coming to QMUL, she held academic positions at UCL, Anglia Ruskin University and Leicester University. Her work focuses on the nexus of ethics, technology and politics/warfare with a specific emphasis on new and emerging military technologies, including military Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous weapon systems, drones and robots. She is the author of Death Machines: The Ethics of Violent Technologies (Manchester University Press) and her work on military AI and autonomous weapon systems has been widely published in a range of international publications. She is Vice-Chair of the International Committee of Robot Arms Control, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum and an RSA Fellow. Elke is also a 2022/23 Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies Fellow and 2024 Leverhulme Research Fellow with a project on the politics of apocalyptic AI. She works with a number of civil society organisations and serves on several editorial boards for publications and book series on politics and technology.
Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo
Il Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo di Perugia è un evento annuale che riunisce professionisti dei media, esperti di comunicazione e appassionati di informazione da tutto il mondo. Si svolge nel centro storico di Perugia e offre conferenze, dibattiti, workshop e opportunità di networking sui temi più rilevanti del giornalismo contemporaneo.
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