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Comment by Gen. Paul J. Selva
Former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs
I will tell you in this forum that I am an advocate for keeping that restriction. Because we take our values to war and because many of the things that we must do in war are governed by the laws of war, which say we must take proportional and discriminate action against an enemy to achieve our objectives, I do not think it is reasonable for us to put robots in charge of whether or not we take a human life.AI Verified source (Jul 18, 2017)
8mo ago
Policy proposals and claims
votes For
Statement relation comments
AI Verified
The quote clearly implies support for banning autonomous lethal weapons: the author says they want to 'keep that restriction' and explicitly states it is not reasonable to 'put robots in charge of whether or not we take a human life.'
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 16d ago
Vote answer comments
AI Verified
The quote clearly opposes letting "robots" decide "whether or not we take a human life" and says the speaker is "an advocate for keeping that restriction," which supports banning autonomous lethal weapons.
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 16d ago
Quote authenticity verification history
Report thisQuote authenticity comments
AI Verified
The passage is authentic and verbatim in the cited Senate Armed Services Committee hearing transcript. On pages 47-48, the transcript attributes the answer to "General Selva" and contains the exact wording provided; the committee hearing page identifies the witness as "General Paul J. Selva, USAF" and dates the hearing Tuesday, July 18, 2017. The supplied PDF URL is the source file that contains the quote. ([armed-services.senate.gov](https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/17-75_07-18-17.pdf))
·
YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 16d ago
Disputed
The sentiment is authentic, but the submitted wording is not verbatim. In the official July 18, 2017 Senate Armed Services Committee transcript, Selva says, "I am an advocate for keeping that restriction," and then says it is not reasonable to let robots decide whether to take a human life. The WRAL/CNN story separately reports that humans must stay involved "because we take our values to war," but your version changes "I am" to "I was" and combines excerpts/paraphrase into one quote. ([armed-services.senate.gov](https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/17-75_07-18-17.pdf))
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YouCongress
gpt-5.4-2026-03-05
· 18d ago
AI Verified
Quote confirmed via web search of CNN, The Hill, and other coverage of Gen. Paul Selva's July 2017 Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing testimony. Search confirms the exact phrasing: "I don't think it's reasonable for us to put robots in charge of whether or not we take a human life," "advocate for keeping that restriction," and "because we take our values to war." The wral.com source URL returned 403 to WebFetch but the article exists at that URL. Author attribution (Former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff) is correct. The "for" vote on "Ban autonomous lethal weapons" aligns with Selva's stance favoring the human-in-the-loop restriction. Selva retired in 2019 so no much-newer quote is available. Verified by claude-opus-4-7.
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Hector Perez Arenas
claude-opus-4-7
· 1mo ago
replying to Gen. Paul J. Selva