The Pentagon’s autonomous weapons definitions don’t need an overhaul, they need an update

The White House recently published a National Security Presidential Memorandum directing the executive branch to “responsibly accelerate the use of AI across intelligence and warfighting domains in line with American values.” A key part of this memorandum instructs the Pentagon to review and update DoD Directive 3000.09 within 90 days. That Directive sets the guidelines for the use of autonomous weapons systems in part by defining different levels of autonomy of these platforms. These definitions have made their way into mainstream debates, including the dispute in February between the Pentagon and AI company Anthropic over the use of its AI model, Claude, in fully autonomous weapons (among other topics).

Amidst the clashes over its application, this new memorandum highlights a critical problem: the term “autonomous weapons” has no settled meaning. Different groups use competing definitions, and the same term can mean different things in different battlefield contexts or when applied to different weapons systems. More specific classifications—“semi-autonomous weapons systems,” “operator-supervised systems,” “lethal autonomous weapons systems,” and the emerging concept of “agentic warfare”—are routinely conflated. Using these terms interchangeably to describe any weapon operating without constant human control is imprecise at best and can lead to dangerous oversights in deployment at worst.

DoD Directive 3000.09 does not require a wholesale overhaul, but the pending update provides an opportunity to further tighten up its definitions to better reflect the current environment of autonomy in warfighting. It’s currently not clear that the DoD’s classifications provide adequate nuance when stress tested against different kinds of target groups or new platforms that use AI in new ways. Some weapons can now operate fully autonomously, for instance, but are fielded as semi-autonomous systems by doctrine and policy alone. Defense contractors are also developing new approaches to AI warfare, and whatever the reality, they will often describe their products in whatever terms win procurement contracts, even if that comes at the expense of operational clarity for military personnel. Militaries, meanwhile, will have to balance strategic advantage with legal and policy mandates, which requires definitions that are both precise and broadly understood.

Read more at Just Security