The United Nations’ long-gestating push to regulate “killer robots,” or artificial intelligence (AI)-controlled autonomous weapons geared for modern warfare, was revisited Monday with experts warning that time is running out.
New lethal technology in the form of autonomous- and AI-assisted weapons systems are increasingly playing an outsized role in conflicts from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, escalating spending on AI-assisted military defense and prompting the need to establish global rules governing their development and use, U.N. officials said. So-called “killer robots” select and attack targets based on sensor processing rather than human inputs, they caution.
With internationally binding standards non-existent, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has set a 2026 deadline for states to establish clear rules on AI weapon use. Unchecked autonomous weapons threatens not just human rights but could spark an arms race, Human Rights Watch warned in a report last month.
In a report in August 2024, Guterres strongly advocated a treaty “to prohibit weapons systems that function without human control or oversight and that cannot be used in compliance with international humanitarian law.”
“Time is really running out to put in some guardrails so that the nightmare scenarios that some of the most noted experts are warning of don’t come to pass,” Alexander Kmentt, head of arms control at Austria’s foreign ministry, told Reuters. Monday’s meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York is the first dedicated to autonomous weapons.
The U.N.’s renewed call for regulation came days after researchers in China said they had successfully developed a handheld device they claim can detect cloaked stealth fighters. The device blends civilian telecoms tech with military-grade radar sensitivities, the South China Morning Post reported.
For more than a decade, U.N. countries that are part of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) have convened in Geneva to discuss a potential ban on fully autonomous systems that operate without meaningful human control and regulate others.
A 2023 U.N. General Assembly resolution urging the international community to address the risks posed by autonomous weapons was supported by 164 countries. But a handful of nations — including the United States, Russia, China and India — instead prefer national guidelines or current international laws, according to Amnesty.
While the debate rages over AI weaponization and spending, weapons experts at the Future of Life Institute have identified about 200 autonomous weapons systems in Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East. At the same time, Russian forces have deployed approximately 3,000 Veter kamikaze drones capable of autonomous warfare in Ukraine, according to the think tank.
