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Comment by Alyn Smith
Scottish MP; foreign affairs lead
The development of artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology, as well as other related technologies, could remove that human element from control of these weapons altogether. They should be banned pre-emptively. I am not the first person to call for that; 30 nations, the UN Secretary-General and, indeed, the Pope have called for a ban, on moral but also technological grounds. The UK can genuinely take a lead on this and, in a bipartisan spirit, I urge it to do so, because that would be a genuinely globally significant development. We should ban lethal autonomous weapons pre-emptively and work to build a global consensus on the practicalities of meaningful human control over weapons systems. That would be of global significance.AI Verified source (Dec 16, 2020)
8mo ago
Policy proposals and claims
votes For
Statement relation comments
AI Verified
The quote directly endorses the full policy: it explicitly says 'They should be banned pre-emptively' and 'We should ban lethal autonomous weapons pre-emptively,' which clearly supports banning autonomous lethal weapons.
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 16d ago
Vote answer comments
AI Verified
The quote explicitly supports a ban: "They should be banned pre-emptively" and "We should ban lethal autonomous weapons pre-emptively."
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 16d ago
Quote authenticity verification history
Report thisQuote authenticity comments
AI Verified
Verified: the Hansard page for the Commons debate “Arms (Exports and Remote Warfare)” on 2020-12-16 identifies the speaker as “Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP),” and the quoted passage appears verbatim in the source across lines 62-64. The stored author, date, and source URL are consistent with the record. ([hansard.parliament.uk](https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-12-16/debates/531F815F-67EA-4594-A01D-D5CB73D938BF/Arms%28ExportsAndRemoteWarfare%29))
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 16d ago
Disputed
The UNA-UK page does contain this exact wording and presents it as Alyn Smith’s remarks (“He stressed:” followed by the quoted text). But the official Hansard transcript of Smith’s 16 December 2020 Commons speech is materially different: it says, for example, “The development of artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology… They should be banned pre-emptively. I am not the first person to call for that; 30 nations…” and later “We should ban lethal autonomous weapons… That would be of global significance.” Because the official record does not match the submitted wording verbatim, this quote is best treated as an edited/rephrased composite rather than an authentic verbatim quotation. ([una.org.uk](https://una.org.uk/news/una-uk-welcomes-call-uk-support-ban-lethal-autonomous-weapons-house-commons))
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 18d ago
AI Verified
Verified: This is from Alyn Smith MP's speech in the UK House of Commons on 16 December 2020, when as SNP foreign affairs spokesperson he introduced legislation calling for a UK ban on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. The UNA-UK URL was blocked by WebFetch but web search confirmed the exact phrases ("They should be banned. They should be banned pre-emptively." and the reference to thirty nations, UN Secretary General, and the Pope). Year 2020 is correct. The vote "for" Ban autonomous lethal weapons aligns perfectly - Smith explicitly calls for a pre-emptive ban.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-7
· 1mo ago
replying to Alyn Smith