Towards AI Regulation (?)

As the impacts of new Artificial Intelligence technologies become visible, regulations should be adopted to mitigate unintended or purposefully harmful applications. Today, the world is increasingly militarizing and warfare is becoming more autonomous. As advancements in military research demonstrates, semi-autonomous militarized systems such as drones provide quick and cost-efficient solutions to traditionally hard military problems. Breakthroughs in machine learning technologies today pave the way for Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems in the arsenals of future militaries. This militarization of AI and rising geopolitical tensions might lead to cold-war level AI-enabled arms race and AI-arms proliferation. International law has not yet decided the fate nor restrictions of development, or use of AI in traditional militaries. What role does international law play in the development of AI technologies in terms of warfare? Preventing the worst-case scenarios requires forward-looking global legislation. Looking at the legal framework for LAWS and similar systems, this paper is set on determining the conditions needed for the start of successful cooperation of states. Only by identifying situations where states are willing to negotiate, can discussions of Global Public AI regulations provide fruit and not let slip the robots of war.