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The UK鈥檚 Brimstone smart missile system is getting smarter. The government has awarded missile makers MBDA a to extend Brimstone鈥檚 service until at least 2030. But some are worried that incremental upgrades could give Brimstone the capabilities of an autonomous weapon, such as the ability to make decisions about where to look for targets by itself.

Brimstone missiles have been used since 2005 and can be launched from aircraft, helicopters and drones. They are used both as standard laser-guided missiles, where they follow an infra-red beam to a designated target, and as self-guiding 鈥渇ire-and-forget鈥� missiles that find their own targets using high-frequency radio seekers, which see through cloud and foliage.

MBDA claims Brimstone can also tell armoured and non-armoured targets apart, picking out military vehicles like tanks and ignoring cars. 鈥淏rimstone can take out the target, and only the intended target, without becoming distracted by other entities,鈥� says MBDA鈥檚 Cliff Kimpton.

Laser-guided missiles need to be directed one at a time but a salvo of twelve self-guided Brimstones can be fired together to seek out targets simultaneously. The missiles coordinate in flight, prioritising targets, so they do not all home in on the same one. This makes it already one of the most autonomous weapons out there.

But the new system will take things up a level. In a聽proposed upgrade known as Precision Attack Mode, the missile will define its own search area. 鈥淚f the target is moving then the idea is that the system would determine a predicted intercept point and the missile would then fly to the point and then search for the target,鈥� says Kimpton.

Ban the bomb?

Autonomous weapons invite great controversy. Some call for a ban on their development and others argue that it is a moral imperative to use them because greater precision could reduce casualties.

Few would wish to revert to earlier technology. For example, Brimstone replaced the BL-755 cluster bomb, which ensured a hit by filling the target area with lethal bomblets. But the concern with systems such as Brimstone is that autonomous weapons may be introduced through gradual upgrades rather than in a major step, avoiding public debate.

Richard Moyes of , a non-profit organisation working to prevent unacceptable uses of weapons, is concerned that we do not know exactly what Brimstone can and cannot do.

鈥淭his sort of example illustrates why the UK government needs to set boundaries and push back against handing over more and more control to computers,鈥� he says. 鈥淎 military evaluation testing a weapon to see if it hits certain things is not necessarily the same as testing whether it doesn鈥檛 hit certain other things.鈥�

Paul Scharre of Washington think-tank agrees with the possibility of autonomy creep. 鈥淢any concepts that seem like a clear, bright line from a distance can look fuzzy up close,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t is entirely possible to imagine a world where militaries build weapons with increasing amounts of autonomy and we cross some significant line without even realizing it.鈥�