On 5 March, SIPRI held a side event at the first 2025 session of the Group of Governmental Experts related to emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapon systems. This session—organized by the 2024 Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)—took place in Geneva on 3–7 March.
The side event was titled ‘Bias in Autonomous Weapon Systems and Compliance with International Humanitarian Law: Addressing a Missing Link’. It featured speakers from SIPRI, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the governments of Pakistan, Panama and the United Kingdom. Over 70 participants from governments and civil society attended the event.
Speakers highlighted the importance of considering bias in autonomous weapons systems (AWS) to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL). Stressing that a lack of attention to bias in AI—including as it relates to gender, ability and culture—may increase the risk that AWS misidentify targets and inflict disproportionate harm, the speakers identified actions that states can take to address bias in military AI and strengthen respect for IHL.
The side event was part of an ongoing SIPRI research project on the legal and humanitarian implications of bias in military AI, which is generously supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.