Noel Sharkey on Ban autonomous lethal weapons

Noel Sharkey

Emeritus AI and robotics professor

We will not be developing autonomous weapons. Therefore, we don’t need to have a prohibition [...] I would call that extremely blinkered.

AI Verified source (2023)

3mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

Ban autonomous lethal weapons

votes For

Statement relation verification history AI Verified

AI Verified The quote directly addresses a prohibition on autonomous weapons and criticizes the view that no ban is needed because 'we will not be developing' them. Calling that reasoning 'extremely blinkered' clearly implies support for having a prohibition/ban. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 4d ago

Vote inference verification history AI Verified

AI Verified The author rejects the idea that "we don’t need to have a prohibition," calling that view "extremely blinkered," which indicates support for a prohibition/ban. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 4d ago

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AI Verified Verified. In the UK Parliament corrected oral-evidence transcript dated Thursday 8 June 2023, line 164 attributes the statement to “Professor Noel Sharkey” and gives the wording: “We will not be developing autonomous weapons. Therefore, we don’t need to have a prohibition or support a prohibition”. “I would call that extremely blinkered.” The submitted version is a faithful partial quotation, with the ellipsis omitting “or support a prohibition.” ([committees.parliament.uk](https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/13273/html)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 5d ago

AI Unverifiable Quote: "We will not be developing autonomous weapons. Therefore, we don't need to have a prohibition [...] I would call that extremely blinkered." — Noel Sharkey, 2023. Checks performed: - Source URL (committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/13273/html) is a House of Lords "AI in Weapon Systems" Committee oral evidence transcript. WebFetch returns HTTP 403 for this URL — and, on testing, for ALL URLs in this environment including Wikipedia and parliament.uk publications — so I cannot read the source content directly. - I attempted multiple WebSearch queries to independently confirm the verbatim quote. Searches confirm: (a) Noel Sharkey gave evidence to this exact House of Lords AI in Weapon Systems Committee (2023, "Proceed with Caution" report); (b) Sharkey is a leading campaigner for a prohibition on autonomous weapons and has used the word "blinkered" criticizing complacent government positions; and (c) the UK government's stated position was effectively "no need for a prohibition." The quote is therefore highly plausible and consistent with his documented views. However, I could NOT confirm the exact verbatim wording via search. - Author attribution: Consistent and plausible (Sharkey, emeritus AI/robotics professor, anti-autonomous-weapons campaigner). - Vote alignment: Vote "for" on "Promoting responsible use of AI in defense policy" aligns — Sharkey criticizing the no-prohibition stance as "blinkered" indicates support for regulation/responsible use. - Year 2023: older but still relevant, so KEPT (not deleted). I searched for a genuine 2026+ Sharkey quote clearly mapping to this statement to add alongside it but did not find one sourced cleanly, so per instructions I did not fabricate one. Marking ai_unverifiable because the source cannot be fetched (URL/tool blocked) and the exact quote could not be independently corroborated. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-8 · 9d ago

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