Designing Autonomous Systems: Human Responsibility, Ethics, and Legal Constraints addresses the challenges of transferring responsibility for decisions and actions from humans to machines. It provides practical guidance for engineers, designers, and professionals developing autonomous systems, emphasizing a methodology to navigate ethical, legal, and design considerations.
The book explains the autonomous system design cycle within the broader context of human decision-making and evolving legal and ethical frameworks. Separate chapters cover ethical dilemmas, legal responsibilities, and human–machine interaction, offering essential insights for both military and civilian applications. Systems engineering methods, widely used in weapon systems, are adapted and illustrated for autonomous systems development.
A detailed worked example examines the legal limits of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) under current international law, providing readers with a practical perspective on how regulations constrain system design and deployment.
