What are ‘killer robots’ and will they be banned from the battlefield?
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres and International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric have issued an urgent joint appeal calling on nations to establish legally binding bans and restrictions on autonomous weapons systems, commonly known as killer robots.
- The international organisations warned that military technology is advancing at record speed, bringing humanity dangerously close to crossing a moral red line where machines autonomously target human beings.
- While the proposal stops short of requesting an outright total ban, it highlights the pressing need for civilian protections and regulatory boundaries as the race towards greater weapon autonomy accelerates in modern warfare.
- The renewed push comes ahead of multilateral talks in Geneva this November regarding the Convention on Conventional Weapons, which negotiators consider the most viable framework for enacting enforceable global regulations.
- Growing concerns over autonomous weaponry have been heightened by the expanding use of drones and related artificial intelligence technologies in active conflicts across Ukraine, Sudan, and the Middle East, alongside explicit warnings from the scientists developing them.
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