Regulation, law and policy
The governance of risk is at the core of Pitchill’s work. At a closed conference of the European Science Foundation, Chris Elliott presented some of the basic concepts of governance for the public and private sectors.
A shorter version of the same argument was presented to the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.
The Private Finance Initiative and Public Private Partnerships have been used to obtain public services from the private sector. Used wisely, they can lead to lower costs and better services. An early Pitchill study explored how the same concepts could be applied to the procurement of public sector space missions.
Responsible States must ensure that any weapon that they deploy complies with the norms of international law. The UK is one of the leading nations developing autonomous weapons, which go beyond remote control to exploit on-board artificial intelligence. Unlike conventional weapons, their behaviour is unpredictable and possibly even unforeseeable. Pitchill carried out an initial investigation of the legal constraints on autonomous weapons, on behalf of the Defence Technology Centre responsible for Systems Engineering for Autonomous Systems.
