‘Killer robots’ must be banned, UN secretary-general says
The United Nations’s chief wants humanity to forbid killer robots.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called Monday for lethal autonomous weapons to be “banned by international law,” resurfacing an AI-safety dispute that was core to Anthropic’s schism with the Pentagon earlier this year.
“Machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life—without human control and judgment. That is morally repugnant,” Guterres said in a speech about AI governance in Geneva. “Let us call them what they are: killer robots.”
Artificial-intelligence systems and chips designed for civilian use are increasingly being deployed both on the battlefield and in military headquarters. That is setting up a debate over when military forces should use AI, when humans should intercede and who should decide where to draw the lines.
The debate burst into public early this year when Anthropic sought assurances from the Pentagon that its AI models wouldn’t be used to power either domestic-surveillance or autonomous-weapons systems. The Pentagon, which was then a heavy user of Anthropic tools, refused, saying it should be allowed to use Anthropic’s AI for all lawful purposes. The two sides are still fighting in court.