REFLECTION GIVEN BY BISHOP ROGER MORRIS AT DSEI 2023

Yesterday, 7th September 2023 as the DSEI Arms Fair was being set up at Excel London, APF, Pax Christi, Quakers and people of other faith backgrounds came together for No Faith in War Day. Bishop Morris of Chelmsford addressed us at the gates as we were surrounded by police and security guards and their dogs. The text of his speech is below.

In 1907, H.G. Wells wrote an extraordinary book called ‘The War in the Air’in which Germany launches an aerial attack on New York which W

ells describes as ‘one of the most cold-blooded slaughters in the world’s history, in which men who were neither excited nor, except for the remotest chance of a bullet, in any danger, poured death and destruction upon homes and crowds below.’

Remember – this was written in 1907 just 4 years after Orville and Wilbur Wright had successfully invented, built and flown the world’s first aeroplane. 34 years later – in 1941, Britain was at war with Nazi Germany and death from the skies in war was commonplace: the Blitz had begun. and H G Wells re-wrote his introduction to The War in the Air angrily concluding with the words: “I told you so. You damned fools.”

The War in the Air prophetically imagined the horror that was to come. And what troubles me most about the scene that HG Wells described is the remoteness the detachedness of those who were wreaking havoc in the skies ‘men who were neither excited nor, except for the remotest chance of a bullet, in any danger, poured death and destruction upon homes and crowds below.’

And as the years have gone by, so that sense of detachment has become greater and greater.

In 2015 The film Eye in the Sky was released. The film opens in Nairobi, where young Alia twirls a hula hoop in her backyard.

Now, I warn you –there may be spoilers coming up for those who have not seen the film Alia – the girl with the hula hoop is selling bread on the corner of the street just outside the house where a terrorist cell is meeting and where a belt packed with high explosives is ready to be put on by the soon-to-be suicide bomber.

Meanwhile a drone hovers overhead armed with hellfire missiles as combatants, lawyers and politicians debate whether or not to strike. And what the CDE might be -CDE stands for Collateral Damage Estimate. They are trying to calculate what are the chances that – in taking out what is considered to be a legitimate military target Alia – the little girl – might be caught up in the blast.

Just as HG Wells War in the Air was, it seemed, the stuff of science fiction so drone attacks and robotic surveillance seem futuristic and fantastical but that is now the reality of modern warfare. But that was 2015 and things have moved on again.

In fact, I would say, that we are on the verge of a whole new era in the development of arms and weaponry and for me it is the most worrying development yet.

And it does – it does feel like the stuff of science fiction.

So let me take you to the 1987 film Robocop. Now Robocop himself was part human but the new Enforcement Droid Series 209 (ED 209) was not. Its intelligence was artificial. It was an AI powered, weaponised, machine of mass destruction and – spoiler alert – its introduction did not go well.

Now, 36 years ago, that was the stuff of science fiction. But fast forward to now-

This is what AI expert Mustafa Suleyman writes in his book:

‘Imagine robots equipped with facial recognition, DNA sequencing and automatic weapons. Future robots will not be scampering dogs. They’ll be the size of the bird or a bee with a small firearm or a small vial of anthrax. This will be accessible to anyone.’

What are delegates at the DSEI coming to see this year? Delegates from countries with the worst human rights records including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Turkey.

What are they coming to see? I fear that the technology that they will be most interested in will not be fighter jets, or warships, or missiles all of which we can see and monitor, and which still require human control and intervention.

No. I fear that the weapons companies and UK Ministers and Government officials will be talking about AI Artificial Intelligence. More remote – more remote even than drones, whose use is now commonplace.

Now the survival of innocent human beings like Alia in The Eye In The Sky will be determined not by combatants, lawyers and politicians but by an algorithm.

Now the means of another human being’s destruction can simply be let loose – released with no further intervention, no control, no manual override, no off-switch. Men – and it IS mostly men – who are neither excited nor in any danger, will be able to pour death and destruction upon homes and crowds like never before.

And here is where it starts; in the deals and the discussions that will take place at the DSEI and that – my dear friends is why I am here. To say NO this should not happen, this should not be permitted.

When God said ‘Thou Shalt not kill’ it was not a suggestion it was a commandment and whether someone seals a deal with an weapons trader, writes a bit of code,

arms a killer robot, or programmes it with the data it needs it is still killing.

It is still breaking the 6^th commandment.

So, we must protest we must work for and pray for peace because I don’t want to end up like H G Wells in 1941 saying in the midst of unimaginable destruction “I told you so. You damned fools.”