126 6 CHAPTER 6 The concept of Human Oversight has been researched by several scholars who mention that an oversight mechanism is needed in order to hold an actor accountable (Caparini, 2004; Schedler, 1999; Scott, 2000). West and Cooper (1989: in (Pelizzo, Stapenhurst, & Olson, 2006)) mention two reasons for oversight in the political system: (1) it can improve the quality of policies or programs and (2) when policies are ratified by the legislative branch, they obtain more legitimacy. The oversight mechanism can be implemented as an ex post review process or a mechanism for either ex post of ex ante supervision (Pelizzo et al., 2006). Oversight over international institutions can be used as an equivalent for the accountability of these institutions according to De Wet (2008). As Bovens (2007) notes, accountability can be viewed as a form of control, but not all forms of control are accountability mechanisms. Therefore, we turned to our third research question: Q3 Which control mechanisms are described in literature and present in the military domain, and which gaps in control mechanisms can be identified by the introduction of Autonomous Weapon Systems? Control has traditionally been defined in different ways, depending on application domain. Control from an engineering perspective can be described as a mechanism that compares the output of another system or device to the input and goal function by means of a feedback loop to take action to minimize the difference between outcome and goal. The traditional engineering perspective holds a very mechanical or cybernetic view on the notion of control, one that is not well-suited to make sense of the interaction between a human agent and an intelligent system for which the human is to remain accountable. The socio-technical perspective on control describes which agent has the power to influence the behaviour of another agent (Koppell, 2005). An agent can be human or a technological system. The influence of one agent over another is often mediated by technology and it also includes controlling the technology. Scott (2000) makes a distinction between ex ante and ex post control. Ex ante involvement in decision-making is related to managerial control and accountability-based control is linked to ex post oversight. Control from a socio-technical perspective is power-oriented and aimed to influence behaviour of agents making use of ex ante, ongoing or ex post instruments. However, it does not explicitly include mechanisms of power over nonhuman intelligent systems, like Autonomous Weapon Systems. The governance perspective on control describes which institutions or forums supervise the behaviour of agents to govern their activities. Pesch (2015) argues that there is no institutional structure for engineers which calls on them to recognize, reflect upon and
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