"You've just been disarmed. Have a nice day!"

On September 23,2003, the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) hosted a meeting in Dahlgren, VA, to explore the arming of unmanned systems. We were interested in what it was going to take to produce armed, fully-autonomous, unmanned systems that could decide for themselves when to pull the trigger. We invited personnel from the Navy's Office of the Judge Advocate General (JAG), International Law Division, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense's (OSD) Office of General Counsel to attend because we had concluded that the legal issues involved would likely be a major problem area. This was an historic meeting between lawyers and engineers!