Ban autonomous lethal weapons

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly critical role in strengthening our national defense, but it should never be the one making life-or-death decisions.

AI mistakes on the battlefield have the potential to be catastrophic: civilian casualties, friendly fire, unintended escalation, and calculations made on faulty data. These aren’t risks worth taking – not when they can result in unnecessary lives los...

We are calling for a treaty to remove all weapons from drones, rather than to ban drones controlled autonomously by AI. This is because all militaries will claim that there will always be a human in ultimate control of AI-augmented drones in spite of...

Dozens of national governments have already stated their support for banning autonomous weapons, and dozens of others expressed their inclination to support such a ban. So, a treaty could be established among those nations, on the model of the recent...

No machine, no algorithm, and no autonomous system can be placed at the center of decisions upon which the survival of humanity depends. Decisions concerning life and death, peace and war, and the future of peoples and generations yet to come must re...

Killer robots are a horror that belongs in science fiction. There is nothing more sinister than outsourcing killing and warfighting to emotionless, faceless machines that will select which humans get to live or die. Lethal autonomous weapons systems ...

I resigned from Google DeepMind bc it broke its founding promise by selling AI to the military without restrictions against killer robots or mass spying. For months, I worked to stop this but watched powerful ethicists and institutions choose silenc...

The international community should adopt binding rules requiring human oversight of autonomous weapons systems and strict compliance with applicable international law at all times.

Indeed, since full moral causality belongs only to personal agents and not to artificial ones, if AI is to be used to uphold human dignity and truly serve the common good, responsibility for its use must remain with human decision-makers, with accoun...

DoD has a strategic, legal, and moral responsibility to ensure that AI technology is deployed with meaningful constraints to comply with U.S. and international laws, including by preventing civilian harm.

We need to make sure that AI is only a tool for life, not a tool for developing lethal weapons which would threaten international peace and security.

We must not normalize a future in which human beings delegate the irreversible decision to take a human life to a machine. Meaningful human responsibility must remain where the stakes are highest.

Machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life – without human control and judgment. That is morally repugnant. It is politically unacceptable. And it must be banned by international law.

As AI integrates into defence systems and the conduct of warfare, human judgement and responsibility must never be surrendered in decisions over life or death. This is why I believe that wherever voluntary principles fall short, we must be prepared t...

Autonomous weapons that select and engage human targets without meaningful human control must be prohibited absolutely, and all other autonomous weapons must be subject to binding regulation.

The reason we chose fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance as the areas where we simply can't say yes is because the technology is so new that we do not believe the laws may be perfectly designed to account for how the technology cou...

Omar #1302 clarifies that the Department of Defense's policy requiring human oversight of AI-enabled weapons applies to determining, tracking, engaging, and targeting decisions.

It is important to affirm Ireland's long-standing position that the use of autonomous weapons systems to identify, select and engage targets without any or nominal human involvement is fundamentally incompatible with international humanitarian law an...

We must, therefore, act domestically. International agreements are the best solution, but in lieu of that, we must have our own domestic legislation.

We must now do everything we can not just to control and regulate killing machines but to forbid the development, testing, stockpiling, retention and use of autonomous weapon systems in this jurisdiction and lead the way in eliminating them throughou...

Turning to today’s Bill, Ireland cannot be complicit in this chilling new form of war. The Bill will ban the use, sale and transit of autonomous weapons or their components in Ireland. This is a crucial step in maintaining our neutrality and our mora...

Outright prohibition is therefore the most practical and effective solution, providing clarity and reliability for militaries and necessary protection for combatants and civilians alike.

It is imperative that states initiate a global process toward a binding international instrument that bans and strictly regulates autonomous weapons systems (AWS).

All weapon systems should remain under human control at all times, and humans should bear the ultimate accountability.

Leading the way on the prohibition of lethal autonomous weapons is a meaningful way that we can add to this legacy in the modern day. That can be helped on its way with this common-sense legislation.

We are on the threshold of the proliferation of autonomous weapons. We are at a transformational point. A system that is operating faster than the speed of thought may be overseen by people such as Xi Jinping, the ayatollahs, Benjamin Netanyahu, Dona...

The question before us is not abstract. It is this: should a machine, powered by artificial intelligence, be permitted to decide to take a human life without any human being making that decision? My answer is an unequivocal “No”, and I believe this B...

At this time of this arms race, I urge that Ireland show leadership, support this Bill and be a strong driver of the push, internationally and at national level, for a prohibition on these arms and weapons.

Governments are urged to halt the use of AI tools, including large language models, in military targeting operations and ensure compliance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

Any revision that compresses testing and evaluation timelines, reduces existing safeguards, or curtails the ability of commanders and operators to exercise human judgment over the use of force risks devastating consequences – including friendly fire ...

I'm somebody that believes that there always must be a human involved in the kill chain, and that we should not be making decisions to take lives based on an AI algorithm. We need to be able to make those decisions as humans, and those are discussion...

The UK’s policy remains that humans, not machines, are accountable for decisions, especially when they relate to the application of lethal force.

I’m proud to introduce this legislation to put in place necessary safeguards to prevent deadly accidents or misfires by autonomous weapons using new and evolving technologies, while also directing the Pentagon to utilize this cutting-edge technology ...

As AI and autonomous systems redefine warfare, we must ensure that our values and control are not sidelined. This bill ensures that a human operator can always oversee, override, or shut down an autonomous weapon. By pairing strict safety reviews wit...

AI is already making our military more capable, but we have to be smart about how we integrate it to keep Americans safe. We can't lose the essential skills that make our military the best in the world or implement systems that could make life and de...

AI is simply not capable of making a judgment. It merely processes data, completely lacking the ability, for example, to distinguish civilians from combatants or to judge whether loss of life is proportionate to military advantage.

The most critical decisions affecting our national security and the lives of our service members must always be made by human beings, not unaccountable machines.

If the warfare of the future is to live up to the moral values of our ancestors, decisions over life and death must be made by humans and not machines.

China has always advocated the notions of people centeredness and technology for good and proposes that military applications such as AI should not undermine the common well being of humanity and that relevant weapons systems must remain at all times...

Technological developments are leading to the growing use of drones, artificial intelligence and other technologies that brings with it significant challenges. As a result, it is vital to retain human control over their use and to move towards regula...

We support the call for legally binding instrument that establishes clear prohibition and restriction on autonomous weapon systems, ensuring that technology never replaces human judgment and control over the use of force.

It is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems. No algorithm can make war morally acceptable.

An AI system assuming the role of judging subject in lethal decisions constitutes the final, simultaneous completion of all three layers of this separation—and is therefore impermissible.

The Group calls for the earliest possible commencement of negotiations, under the auspices of the United Nations, toward a legally binding instrument that prohibits lethal autonomous weapons systems, in conformity with international humanitarian law ...

However, giving autonomy to the firing decision itself constitutes a moral red line that must not be crossed. There is a growing consensus among scholars of the ethics of war that the use of AI-controlled lethal autonomous weapons is contrary to the ...

Congress is behind in putting left and right limits on the use of AI, and the first place to start should be at the Pentagon. My bill ensures a human is involved when deadly autonomous weapons are fired.

Sri Lanka perceives that the rolling text contains fundamental elements to serve as the basis for future negotiation of a legally binding instrument to prohibit lethal autonomous weapons systems with necessary improvements through further discussions...

Human primacy must be upheld in military applications of artificial intelligence (AI), and all relevant weapon systems must be put under human control to avoid technological runaway.

Stop Killer Robots would of course wish to see stronger prohibitions than those that are currently contained in the text – including on anti-personnel autonomous weapons systems, and systems that do not allow for meaningful human control.

Government agencies should prohibit the use of generative AI to control, direct, guide or govern any weapon.

Life decisions should not be left in the hands of algorithms rather than humans, and we believe that a clear ban on these anti-personnel weapons represents an appropriate moral and legal response.

The AI System will not be used to independently direct autonomous weapons in any case where law, regulation, or Department policy requires human control.

[We] have no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement.

But today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America’s warfighters and civilians at risk.

I firmly object to any effort by the Administration to strong-arm AI companies into enabling mass surveillance or developing weapons that operate without meaningful human control.

Sri Lanka has been advocating for early commencement of negotiations on a legally binding instrument to prohibit Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems.

The goal is not to remove humans from the loop, but to ensure that the loop itself remains ethically and operationally sound.

The use of unregulated military AI in Gaza and Ukraine clearly shows the dangers of these weapons and tools — and states’ lack of movement toward legal red lines is gravely insufficient. Our political leaders must create laws to protect civilians fro...

Fully autonomous weapons systems and Orwellian AI-enabled domestic mass surveillance are affronts to our dignity and liberty. [...] Domestic mass surveillance of US citizens is a red line that should never be crossed. [...] Our safety and basic right...

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 unde...

The Secretary-General has always said that using machines with fully delegated power, making a decision to take human life is just simply morally repugnant. It should not be allowed. It should be, in fact, banned by international law. That's the Unit...

Autonomous Weapon Systems, which are capable of identifying and attacking targets without direct human intervention, are a “cause for grave ethical concern” because they lack the “unique human capacity for moral judgment and ethical decision-making.”...

No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.

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

This risk should further motivate us to redesign the global political system in a way that would completely eradicate wars and thus obviate the need for military organizations and military weapons. [...] It goes without saying that lethal autonomous...

Rapid technological advances raise fundamental legal, moral and security questions. No more so than lethal autonomous weapons systems. This is not science fiction. It is fast becoming a reality – a reality that the Secretary-General of the UN has rig...

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 per...

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.

Ban the development, transfer, deployment and use of fully autonomous weapons systems.

Inanimate machines cannot understand or respect the value of life, yet they would have the power to determine when to take it away. Our campaign believes that machines should never be permitted to take human life on the battlefield or in policing, bo...

Allowing machines to choose to kill humans would be devastating to our security and freedom. [...] the window to act is closing fast.

It is obviously gratifying to see one’s research having an impact. At the same time, it should be recognised that we have a long way to go before there will be a complete ban, as I and many others have called for. This is an immensely complicated iss...

There are more problems with fully autonomous weapons, but the conclusion is clear to me: while they have some advantages, their use is ethically highly problematic in many ways. Therefore, we should not use them and perhaps ban them. Based on the mo...

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

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...

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 discrim...

We must add autonomous weapons to the list of weapons that are morally unacceptable to use.

That is why I believe we need to ban them as fast and as hard as we possibly can.

Although engaged citizens sign petitions everyday, it is not often that captains of industry, scientists and technologists call for prohibitions on innovation of any sort — let alone an outright ban. The ban is an important signifier. Even if it is s...

to prohibit the development, testing, production and use of autonomous weapon systems in all circumstances.

Killer robots loom over our future if we do not take action to ban them now,

Governments should pre-emptively ban fully autonomous weapons because of the danger they pose to civilians in armed conflict [...].

Early debates on autonomous weapons often centred on the claim that we need direct human supervisory control over specific use-of-force decisions and that anything falling short of this should be prohibited.

We have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions.

The Trump administration wants to use A.I. to spy on Americans without a warrant and to give A.I. power to make life and death decisions without humans involved. That would put our Constitutional rights and our lives in the hands of unaccountable AI ...

The key risk is not only "runaway" AI, but the quiet normalization of systems that undermine human dignity, due process, and equal protection because no one is clearly accountable when things go wrong. [...] The central question will be whether gover...

to demand meaningful human control, which ensures responsibility and accountability, in any use of force; [...] It is a world that rejects the automation of killing and instead, promotes the principle of human control over emerging technologies that ...

What greater attack on human rights and human dignity could there be than allowing an algorithm to make life‑or‑death decisions? Human rights and humanitarian international law are our compass; they must continue to focus on people, not on machines. ...

Decisions impacting human life and safety should never be handed off to algorithms.

As an Army veteran who served in Iraq, I know the moral responsibility that comes with taking human life in combat, decisions that must never be handed over to machines. This bill ensures meaningful human control over lethal autonomous systems, resto...

Every lawmaker should understand the importance of keeping Americans safe by ensuring a human is always involved in decisions affecting human life. Unlike humans, machines can't apply judgments based on values and morals, and all available evidence s...

No machine should ever be given the power to decide to kill a human being on its own. Allowing AI systems to independently select and engage targets carries serious risks; machines cannot understand morality or the value of human life, nor can they b...

In France, the choice of the "human-in-the-loop" principle imposes major engineering constraints on our engineers to ensure genuine human responsibility and operational risk assessment.

The White House and people at the top of the Pentagon seem to treat it as magic, whereas those who are actually building it realize that it hallucinates, it makes mistakes, stupid errors of reasoning. And if you put that into production, into practic...

It is evident that the world must act urgently to alter the self-destructive path we are on. An escalating arms race in disruptive technologies like unregulated AI, autonomous weapons, nuclear arms and other dangerous weapons is driving this path. No...

Over the past few weeks, it has become even more clear that there is an urgent need for guardrails on how AI is used by the Defense Department. [...] Whenever a technology has the capability of taking a human life, there needs to be a human operator ...

Our authoritarian adversaries, like Russia and China, and rogue states like North Korea are not going to sign up to this ban, he said. [Automated weapons] will completely change the speed and efficiency with which armies can kill the other side, he ...

The point of a preemptive treaty is to prevent future harm and with all the dangers and concerns associated with fully autonomous weapons, it would be irresponsible to take a “wait and see” approach and only try to deal with the issue after the harm ...

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...

Instead, Washington should take the lead in drafting a new, international agreement to ban killer robots and regulate other kinds of autonomous systems. There is no better time to push for such a prohibition than next week, on May 13, when 117 countr...

The second reason I think it’s a bad idea is if the robot-with-a-gun is not remotely controlled by a human but ‘autonomous’. In other words the robot decides, on its own, where to aim its gun and when to fire. Of course there are serious ethical and ...

The Government strongly believes that there is a need to maintain meaningful human control of all weapons systems, including any systems that may be developed. Our position is that, for such systems to comply with international humanitarian law, cont...

A total prohibition on all autonomous weapons would likely fail to distinguish between high-risk anti-personnel systems and narrowly bounded defensive systems used against incoming missiles or munitions.

And we are backing this by putting more than £5 billion into drones and autonomous weapons—the largest ever UK investment in this technology.

I believe there is a better and more pragmatic way to constrain human rights abuses than to ban lethal autonomy; it is to hold the responsible people accountable, regardless of the tools they employ.

This article argues that this abhorrence-based case fails to justify, with current evidence, a blanket prohibition.

Artificial intelligence will continue to shape the battlespace of the future, and our military must be equipped with every tactical and technical advantage it needs to win in this complex environment. Simultaneously, we must ensure the Department of ...

If a human is able to take that responsibility upon themselves, that they know there will be no friendlies, no bystanders in this area, then that type of mission is possible.

For any military to compete effectively against other high-end militaries it is going to need a large amount of systems that will be required to take decisions on their own.

You must have the ability to take the human out of the loop when required.

It could actually work, whereas relying on humans in a very fast-moving seconds matter for warfare is probably going to lead to far worse results in terms of collateral damage.

It is important for our delegation to retain the reference to human control and we are in favor of the emphasis that context-appropriate human judgement and control are needed in the use and effects of LAWS to uphold compliance with international law...

The exercise of human judgement and control is strengthened by setting boundaries and limitations to the development and employment of LAWS.

Personal view: I admire @AnthropicAI sticking by their principles but disagree with the principle itself. Putin won't fight fair so we should have autonomous AI weapons for sure.

I argue that enacting a global ban would be both unnecessary and insufficient for avoiding or meaningfully limiting AWS proliferation to actors willing to use them as weapons of subjugation and terror. It would be unnecessary because banning high-end...

The United States has opposed calls to develop a ban and does not support opening negotiations, whether on a legally binding instrument or a political declaration, at this time. We must not be anti-technology and must be cautious not to make hasty ju...

To the second part of your question, I am strongly in favor of discussions internationally about things like norms. I think with this point, it would be counterproductive to have outright bans on things that people don't even fully understand what th...

“Here is one of the problems with the Campaign To Stop Killer Robots,” said former deputy defense secretary Robert Work. “They refer to ‘lethal autonomous weapons systems.’ […] They’re defining a weapon that is unsupervised or independent from human ...

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 Con...

Those headlines were misleading. The letter doesn’t explicitly call for a ban, although one of the organizers has suggested it does. Rather, it offers technical advice to a UN committee on autonomous weapons formed in December. The group’s warning th...

For example, commanders can use precision-guided weapon systems with homing functions to reduce the risk of civilian casualties,

a categorical ban on AWS is unjustified morally and legally

But a ban is not the solution – neither is inflaming the public with dystopian visions of the future.

I argue that regulation, rather than an outright ban, would likely be more effective in ensuring that FAWs comply with international law. This argument begins from the premise that the best approach to FAWs is the one most likely to reduce human suff...

The problem with this argument is that no letter, UN declaration, or even a formal ban ratified by multiple nations is going to prevent people from being able to build autonomous, weaponized robots. The barriers keeping people from developing this ki...

The open letter signed by more than 12,000 prominent people calling for a ban on artificially intelligent killer robots, connected to arguments for a UN ban on the same, is misguided and perhaps even reckless. Wait, misguided? Reckless? Let me offer...

I believe that now is the wrong time to be making decisions like this. Having the discussion is fine. But saying, “No, we’re not going to work on this” is wrong. First, we need to understand what’s possible. We can make a choice not to use what we de...

Those who reply that to delegate firing at targets to a machine is on principle unacceptable are begging the question. They do not define the “human dignity” they invoke, nor do they explain how exactly it is violated. Regarding the Martens Clause, i...

Advocates of a ban on autonomous weapons often claim that the technology today isn’t good enough to discriminate reliably between civilian and military targets, and therefore can’t comply with the laws of war. In some situations, that’s true. For oth...

these efforts should not be prematurely terminated by a preemptive ban.

The United States should oppose attempts at the CCW to ban LAWS,

unrealistic, belated and short-sighted, and ignores mankind's frailties. I am not advocating their use, but I object to an outright ban. [...] At a minimum, it's at least possible that at some point in the not-too-distant future LARs may be able to b...

At first, lethal autonomous weapons systems that cannot guarantee use in conformity with international humanitarian law — that is, systems that are intrinsically indiscriminate; systems whose effects cannot be limited, anticipated and controlled; sys...

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

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.

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 s...