AI and autonomous technologies are taking a hold everywhere, including weapon systems. And that comes with some of the toughest questions of all in terms of ethics and finding a balance with human control. Dr Joshua Hughes' interest in this crucial area began with his Master’s degree in International Law and International Relations at Lancaster and work on the regulation of cyber warfare and drones.

“Autonomy has been present in weapons for some time, for example, in heat-seeking missiles that target the hottest object,” explained Joshua. “But there are now many more weapon systems in development that having increasing levels of autonomy, and there has to be an understanding and consideration of the ethics of this, who takes responsibility and how for the decisions that are made by systems: how do they make choices about what and who to target.”

He says: “I stayed at Lancaster for my PhD because it made sense to stay with the same supervisory team — not many other academics were looking at the issues and my main supervisor Professor James Sweeney had recently contributed to a legal manual applying international law to cyber warfare.

“Lancaster Law School was always very creative and open to encouraging different perspectives, it's an environment that allowed for more interesting analysis and approaches. That encouraged me to set up a research network on security and the implications of new technologies alongside another research student [Dr Mike Ryder, who’s now a lecturer in marketing at Lancaster]. Our network was supported by the North West Consortium and I also worked with Lancaster’s Richardson Institute, the peace and conflict research centre.”

The PhD experience and the networks involved quickly opened doors.

“I submitted my thesis on Friday, and started my job with Trilateral Research on the Monday. The work there has focused on areas like the use of AI in policing systems for large organised crime investigations and child protection, and more generally how to embed privacy and legal compliance into the design of the tech, including how crime data can be anonymised.

“It was always very easy to make connections and network across schools and different disciplines at Lancaster, and that’s been an important training for my current work. It’s been instinctive, and very useful, to collaborate more widely with data scientists and software engineers, leading to new insights and understanding.”

joshua.hughes@trilateralresearch.com