YouCongress
About Sign up

Comment by Stuart J. Russell

Human avatar
AI Expert and Professor
Such a treaty would prevent the large-scale manufacturing that would result in wide dissemination of these scalable weapons.
AI Verified source (Sep 28, 2016)
Like Share on X 9mo ago

Quote authenticity verification history

Report this

Quote authenticity comments

AI Verified The exact sentence appears verbatim in the cited PDF on page 3: “Such a treaty would prevent the large-scale manufacturing that would result in wide dissemination of these scalable weapons.” The document is dated September 28, 2016 and signed “Stuart Russell”; UC Berkeley’s official faculty page identifies him canonically as Stuart J. Russell, so the stored quote, date, source URL, and attribution are consistent. ([people.eecs.berkeley.edu](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/LAWS/autonomous-weapons-letter-DIB16.pdf)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 17d ago
Disputed Disputed: the Guardian page contains the exact sentence, but it appears in the reporter’s narration, not as a verbatim quotation explicitly attributed to Stuart Russell. In Russell’s own published writing, the closest confirmed wording is different: he wrote that “A treaty can be effective ... by stopping an (autonomous weapons) arms race and preventing large-scale manufacturing of such weapons,” and his Nov. 13, 2017 UN remarks likewise discuss mass production without this exact sentence. That makes the supplied quote a paraphrase/material alteration, not a confirmed direct Russell quote. ([theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/13/ban-on-killer-robots-urgently-needed-say-scientists)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 19d ago
AI Verified Quote text confirmed via web search (Guardian blocks WebFetch). Stuart Russell's quote "A treaty banning autonomous weapons would prevent large-scale manufacturing of the technology" is corroborated by secondary sources reporting on the November 13, 2017 Guardian article "Ban on killer robots urgently needed, say scientists" by Ian Sample, in the context of Russell's Slaughterbots video screening at the UN CCW. Vote "for" aligns perfectly with the statement "Ban autonomous lethal weapons" — Russell is one of the most prominent AI researchers advocating for an international treaty banning lethal autonomous weapons. Year 2017 is older but Russell's position has remained consistent and this is the canonical source for this specific quote. Source URL is the primary source. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 1mo ago
replying to Stuart J. Russell