Dr Bianca Baggiarini1
1ANU, Canberra, Australia
Biography:
Bianca Baggiarini is a political sociologist and lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University where she teaches critical military and war studies. Her research is on the social, political, and ethical justifications and effects of remote and autonomous systems (RAS). Her book, Governing Military Sacrifice: Privatization, Drones, and the Future of War (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming) analyses how drones and military privatization together reveal the breakdown of the citizen-soldier archetype and its links to sacrificial cults and idioms. Baggiarini is a researcher on a Defence Strategic Policy grant (2024-2027) which examines the role and meaning of RAS in deterrence theory and practice and has recent publications on machine learning algorithms and resort-to-force decision making and the discourse of “trusted autonomy.” She is working on a second edited book about RAS, disembodied combat, and the future of wartime memory. Previously, she was a researcher at UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy, where she worked with the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre on the ethics of autonomous weapons systems.
Abstract:
Remote and autonomous systems are now central in both the theory and practice of war today. For example, In Gaza, a war of annihilation has witnessed machine learning software generating countless targets for IDF soldiers at rapid speeds, based on impenetrable ‘black box’ algorithmic logics. In contrast, in Ukraine, hundreds of drones per day are manufactured and then lost in what is now clearly a war of attrition. As militaries and non-state actors alike worldwide continue to acquire emerging remote and autonomous technologies across all combat domains (e.g., strategic, operational and tactical), how, and the extent to which, traditional ethical frameworks and norms can be effectively deployed to better know or challenge these developments remains to be seen. This panel draws on critical ethical theories and international relations theory to explore the limitations of traditional ethical frameworks as applied to contemporary war-making across theory and practice. Together, the papers variously suggest that new or marginal methods and means of ethical reasoning must urgently be applied to better understand the changing quality and character of high-tech war today – and most importantly – how to stop and prevent future wars. The thrust of the panel is the suspicion that, as wars become increasingly contingent upon artificial and machine-based intelligence, the 'humanness' of war will get lost, and so too will our capacity for ethical reasoning and judgment.