No Humans in the Loop

Abstract

Abstract Wilcox’s chapter considers the dominant discourses around so-called ‘killer robots’, focusing specifically on the US military’s policy of the ‘human in the loop’. By insisting that any autonomous weapon must include a human controller in any decision-making process, the US military claims that the potential harmful effects of LAWs can be effectively controlled and mitigated. However, drawing on the Black and decolonial feminist thought of Denise Ferreira da Silva, and Sylvia Wynter, Wilcox demonstrates how the human-in-the-loop policy relies on a particular configuration of the ‘human’ that is always already undergirded by the power relations of gender, coloniality, and race. By framing the human itself as a technology, Wilcox demonstrates how histories of racial violence and colonial control continue to influence who counts as human, and which bodies are considered worthy of protection.