- UN Secretary-General Calls for Global Ban on Autonomous ‘Killer Robots’
- Guterres claims delegating life-or-death decisions to machines is ‘morally repugnant’
- Governments should act now – not wait for something catastrophic to happen
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for lethal autonomous weapons, which he describes as ‘killer robots’, to be banned under international law following recent discussions at the first Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance in Geneva.
Guterres’ call to ban these weapons focuses on those capable of identifying, selecting and attacking targets without human supervision, leaving artificial intelligence and other computer systems responsible for a life-or-death decision.
He ultimately argued that certain decisions must remain solely human, and the decision to take a life is well within the bounds of requiring human oversight. Transferring decision-making to killer robots would be “morally repugnant” and “politically unacceptable,” he argued.
AI requires global regulation as military AI poses major threats
Key to the Secretary-General’s argument is that he is calling on governments to act and ban such robots now, rather than waiting for an autonomous weapon to cause a major incident before rethinking their strategies.
“Let’s not wait for the atrocity to act,” Guterres said. “Some decisions must forever remain human – no more than taking a human life.”
The problem is becoming more pressing now that AI models and advanced chips are already being used in military intelligence, targeting and other battlefield systems.
More broadly, Guterres’ thoughts echo those of Anthropic, which recently had a dispute with the Pentagon after seeking assurances that its models would not be used for autonomous weapons or surveillance.
While the Pentagon had rejected these restrictions, arguing that it should be able to use Anthropic’s models for any lawful purpose, the case highlights how private companies are becoming increasingly intertwined with digital warfare.
Reporting of The Wall Street Journal cited a similar view from Pope Leo XIV, who warns that AI-controlled weapons could promote an “anti-human” view of warfare. He warned that the autonomy could reduce some dangers and distance political leaders from the human consequences of the conflict.
There is a need to balance the advantages and disadvantages of AI
However, artificial intelligence promises several advantages to modern warfare, particularly in its ability to process vast amounts of information extremely quickly. With modern computing, militaries can respond to threats with lightning speed, improving their accuracy and precision, reducing soldier risk and potentially reducing civilian casualties as well.
Critics also question whether human monitoring of AI systems is even meaningful if the person in charge has only seconds to act on AI-generated information in the first place.
It is also not yet determined which party or group of parties will be held responsible for any incidents or mishaps – human operators, commanders, hardware manufacturers and software developers are just some of the parties to be judged.
“We may be the last generation capable of setting the terms on which humanity and machines coexist,” Guterres warned separately in an X post, warning that AI must be governed, trusted and fair.
“It sounds like science fiction, but it’s a real possibility, and it could change the world in ways that we don’t understand yet, and it could change the power dynamics of our planet in ways that demand our attention,” added Yoshua Bengio, chairman of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI.
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