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Accountability under Autonomy: Human Oversight in AI-Enabled Command and Control
By Kjell Schipper MSc
The integration of artificial intelligence into military Command and Control (C2) is transforming how decisions are generated, executed, and supervised, particularly in the context of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS). While these systems enhance operational effectiveness, they also challenge established frameworks of accountability and ethical oversight. When elements of target selection and engagement are delegated to autonomous systems, responsibility becomes embedded within complex socio-technical processes, raising questions about how accountability can be maintained. This article examines how accountability and ethical oversight can be preserved under these conditions. It adopts the Comprehensive Human Oversight Framework (CHOF), expanding the notion of ‘Meaningful Human Control’ (MHC). This framework conceptualizes oversight as a continuous and distributed process across governance, socio-technical, and technical layers, and across the phases before, during, and after deployment. It enables analysis of how accountability is institutionally organized within AIenabled C2 systems. Empirically, the study draws on a qualitative case study of the Royal Netherlands Army (RNLA), based on semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Three key findings emerge. First, the delegation of decision-making intensifies the demand for demonstrable system reliability as a condition for lawful and accountable use. Second, the technical characteristics of AI systems, including data-dependency, model updates, and opacity, render predictability conditional and fragile. Third, organizational fragmentation across the system lifecycle creates gaps between formal accountability and practical oversight capacity, undermining traceability and complicating legal review mechanisms. The findings suggest that accountability in AI-enabled C2 depends less on direct human control at the moment of engagement, and more on the institutional production of reliability through continuous validation, technical transparency, and lifecycle-wide integration. CHOF provides a structured lens for identifying these requirements and their associated tensions in practice.
