Position: Professor of Political Theory, Queen Mary University London
Links: Website
Expertise Areas: Military Artificial Intelligence, autonomous weapon systems, drones, ethics, moral philosophy, political economy of military-industrial-technology complex
Contact: e.schwarz@qmul.ac.uk
Bio:
Elke Schwarz is Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University London (QMUL). She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), an MA in Conflict Studies from the War studies Department at King’s College London (KCL) and a Bachelor in Business Studies from Belmont University (USA). Her work focuses on the nexus of ethics, technology and politics / warfare with a specific emphasis on new and emerging military technologies, including military Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous weapon systems, drones and robots. She is the author of Death Machines: The Ethics of Violent Technologies (Manchester University Press) and her work on military AI and autonomous weapon systems has been widely published. She is Vice-Chair of the International Committee of Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), an Associate with the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and an RSA Fellow. Elke is also a 2022/23 Center for Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS) Fellow and 2024 Leverhulme Research Fellow For more of her current work see http://www.politics.qmul.ac.uk/staff/profiles/schwarzelke.html
Recent Publications:
‘On the pitfalls of technophilic reason’ (forum on Kevin Jon Heller’s The concept of “the human” in the critique of autonomous weapons’, Harvard National Security Journal https://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/SchwarzandRenic.pdf
‘Engineering moral failure? The challenges of algorithmic ethics for lethal autonomous weapon systems’, in Bächle, TC and Bareis, J (eds) The Realities of Autonomous Weapons (Bristol University Press) – https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/edcollchap-oa/book/9781529237191/ch013.xml
‘From blitzkrieg to blitzscaling: Assessing the impact of venture capital dynamics on military norms’, Finance and Society, online first 7 January 2025 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/finance-and-society/article/from-blitzkrieg-to-blitzscaling-assessing-the-impact-of-venture-capital-dynamics-on-military-norms/2462382DB41CA7E1CAD27309088EA0D8
‘The Silicon Valley venture capitalists who want to “move fast and break things” in the defence industry, The Conversation, 16 January 2025 https://theconversation.com/the-silicon-valley-venture-capitalists-who-want-to-move-fast-and-break-things-in-the-defence-industry-245778
‘Throwing Caution to the Wind: Unpacking the U.K. AI Opportunities Action Plan’, Just Security, 30 January 2025
‘The Hacker Way: Moral Decision Logics with Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems’, in Glaser, H. and Wong, P. (eds.) Governing the Future: Digitalization, Artificial Design, Dataism (Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC). https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/9781003226406-7/hacker-way-elke-schwarz
‘Beyond Law: Reaffirming the Centrality of Ethics in War’ (co-authored with Neil Renic), Just Security, 7 October 2024. https://www.justsecurity.org/103464/beyond-law-reaffirming-the-centrality-of-ethics-in-war/
‘Trolleyology: Algorithmic Ethics for Killer Robots’, in Gunkel, D. (ed) Handbook on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (Edward Elgar Publishing) https://www.elgaronline.com/downloadpdf/edcollchap/book/9781803926728/book-part-9781803926728-11.pdf
‘Moral Maze: Ethics for Cyber Weapon Systems’, in Stevens, T. and Devanny, J. (eds) Research Handbook on Cyberwarfare (Edward Elgar Publishing). https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781803924854/book-part-9781803924854-30.pdf
“Crimes of Dispassion: Autonomous Weapons and the Moral Challenge of Systematic Killing”, Ethics and International Affairs, 37(3) (co-authored with Neil Renic) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ethics-and-international-affairs/article/crimes-of-dispassion-autonomous-weapons-and-the-moral-challenge-of-systematic-killing/ECDC02C13BA23C432C9B11D84ACBB303
“Cybernetics at War: Military Artificial Intelligence, Weapon Systems and the De-Skilled Human”, in Gruszczak, A. and Kaempf, S. (eds.) Routledge Handbook of the Future of War (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023). https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003299011-32/cybernetics-war-elke-schwarz
‘Autonomous Weapon Systems, Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Meaningful Human Control’, Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence, V(1). 2021 https://trivent-publishing.eu/img/cms/4-%20Elke%20Schwarz.pdf
‘Silicon Valley Goes to War: Artificial Intelligence, Weapons Systems and the De-Skilled Moral Agent’, Philosophy Today, Online First May 25th, 2021 https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/69924/Schwarz%20Silicon%20Valley%20Goes%20to%20War%202021%20Accepted.pdf?sequence=2
‘Ethics and cyber-systems: Artificial intelligent weapons systems and moral slippage’, in Skerker, M. and Whetham, D. (eds) Cyber Warfare Ethics: A Handbook for Military Professionals (Hampshire: Howgate Publishing Ltd)
‘Günther Anders in Silicon Valley: Artificial Intelligence and Moral Atrophy’, Thesis Eleven, 153(1): 94-112. 2019 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0725513619863854
