Life-and-death decisions must never be delegated to sensors and algorithms. Human control over the use of force is critical to preserving accountability in warfare. Machines with the power to take lives without human involvement should be banned under international law. (2025) source Verified

in light of the tragedy that is armed conflict, it is urgent to reconsider the development and use of devices like the so-called ‘lethal autonomous weapons’ and ultimately ban their use. This starts from an effective and concrete commitment to introduce ever greater and proper human control. No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being. (2024) source Verified

It opens up entirely new possibilities for things that you can do—where you can go into battle or do a terrorist attack with zero risk to yourself, and you can also do it anonymously, because if some drones show up and start killing people somewhere you have no idea who sent them. [...] One of the main factors that limits wars today is that people have skin in the game. [...] Politicians don’t want to see body bags coming home, and even a lot of terrorists don’t want to get killed. (2015) source Verified

I send greetings to everyone attending these important consultations on a defining issue of our time — the threat posed by lethal autonomous weapons systems. Machines that have the power and discretion to take human lives without human control are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be banned by international law. I reiterate my call for the conclusion of a legally binding instrument by 2026. The work being done by you and others around the world — including within the context of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons — is moving us in the right direction. (2025) source Verified

Ban the development, transfer, deployment and use of fully autonomous weapons systems. (2020) source Verified

to prohibit the development, testing, production and use of autonomous weapon systems in all circumstances. (2014) source Unverified

“You are unlikely to achieve a full ban of autonomous weapons,” he says. (2017) source Unverified

Thus, a prohibition on the development and use of lethal autonomous weapons systems is not the simple solution it appears to be. (2018) source Unverified

What we really need is a way of making autonomous armed robots ethical, because we’re not going to be able to prevent them from existing. (2015) source Unverified

Governments should pre-emptively ban fully autonomous weapons. (2012) source Unverified

a categorical ban on AWS is unjustified morally and legally (2017) source Unverified

A treaty banning autonomous weapons would prevent large-scale manufacturing of the technology. (2017) source Unverified

We have been working for the past seven years now trying to get an international treaty to prohibit fully autonomous weapons systems of this nature. (2020) source Unverified

Killer robots loom over our future if we do not take action to ban them now, (2013) source Unverified

Even worse, the proposed solution—a legally binding treaty banning autonomous weapons—won't solve the real problems humanity faces as autonomy advances in weapons. (2017) source Unverified

these efforts should not be prematurely terminated by a preemptive ban. (2015) source Unverified

The United States should oppose attempts at the CCW to ban LAWS, (2015) source Unverified

Weapons without meaningful human control over selecting and attacking targets should be banned before it is too late, stressed MEPs on Wednesday. (2018) source Unverified

agree to start negotiating a preemptive ban on fully autonomous weapons, (2016) source Unverified

We must add autonomous weapons to the list of weapons that are morally unacceptable to use. (2017) source Unverified

But a ban is not the solution – neither is inflaming the public with dystopian visions of the future. (2017) source Unverified

That is why I believe we need to ban them as fast and as hard as we possibly can. (2016) source Unverified

It is clear that the rational approach to the inhumanity of automating death by machine is to prohibit it. (2012) source Unverified

The UK remains fully committed to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Under the UK’s chairmanship in 2017, High Contracting Parties agreed essential financial reforms. But the Convention will only become financially stable if all High Contracting Parties pay their contributions and arrears promptly. The UK welcomes the progress made this year by the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. We support continuing the GGE’s current mandate into 2019. We continue to oppose a legal instrument or ban that would prejudice legitimate technological advances. We look forward to further work through the GGE on Guiding Principles and the role of existing processes, structures, industry standards and national and international legal frameworks. (2018) source Unverified

We need a law to ban autonomous robots from killing people on their own initiative. For example, in 2013, the Northrop Grumman X-47B, a prototype sub-sonic aircraft with two bomb compartments and a 62-foot wingspan, autonomously took off from and landed on an aircraft carrier. The proposed ban on autonomous lethal robots is focused upon ensuring that in the future, selecting a target and pulling the “trigger” is always a decision made by a human and never delegated to a machine. There must always be a human in the loop. Today’s computers do not have the smarts to make discriminating decisions such as who to kill or when to fire a shot or a missile. Thus, a ban is directed at future systems that have not yet been deployed, and in nearly all cases, have not yet been built. There is still time to make a course correction. Nevertheless, there already exist dumb autonomous or semi-autonomous weapons that can kill. (2015) source Unverified

World military powers both large and small are pursuing artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled and autonomous weapon systems. Such systems have the potential to help commanders make faster, better, and more relevant decisions. They will enable weapon systems to be capable of levels of performance, speed, and discrimination that exceed human capabilities. The increasing use of AI technologies in weapon systems has generated important questions regarding whether such systems are lawful, safe, and ethical. The Commission does not support a global prohibition of AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems. (2021) source Unverified

The next revolution in warfare threatens to undermine fundamental principles of morality and law. Fully autonomous weapons, already under development in a number of countries, would have the power to select targets and fire on them without meaningful human control. In so doing, they would violate basic humanity and the public conscience. A new report from Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, of which I was the lead author, shows why fully autonomous weapons would fail both prongs of the test laid out in the Martens Clause. We conclude that the only adequate solution for dealing with these potential weapons is a preemptive ban on their development, production, and use. More than 70 countries will convene at the United Nations in Geneva from August 27 to 31 to discuss what they refer to as lethal autonomous weapons systems. They will meet under the auspices of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, a major disarmament treaty. To avert a crisis of morality and a legal vacuum, countries should agree to start negotiating a treaty prohibiting these weapons in 2019. (2018) source Unverified