UN and Red Cross call for ban on autonomous weapons targeting humans

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BRUSSELS — Countries should ban or restrict the use of autonomous weaponry, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday, in a joint appeal with the Red Cross.

The world is inching closer to “crossing a moral red line”, the “autonomous targeting of humans by machines,” Guterres said. The UN press release referred to “unconfirmed reports” that drones guided by artificial intelligence are being deployed on the battlefield.

On Monday, the New York Times ran a story which claimed that a Russian AI-guided drone killed three Ukrainians, highlighting how AI could evolve drone warfare.

Guterres and ICRC chief Mirjana Spoljaric underlined that targeting civilians in war is a violation of international humanitarian law, and said they fear that machines won’t be able to tell the difference between combatants and non-combatants.

Both called for a ban on autonomous weapons which produce unpredictable results and anti-personnel weapons that deliberately target human beings.

The UN is set to hold a conference in Geneva in November to review its treaty on conventional weapons. Lethal autonomous weapon systems are expected to be a subject of that gathering. The UN has long been pushing countries to progress on legally binding rules.

“When we speak about AI, we want human oversight,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters on Tuesday when asked about the Commission’s assessment on whether humans should be kept in the loop of military applications.

Human oversight is a key concept of the bloc’s Artificial Intelligence Act, which doesn’t apply, though, to defence or security applications.