Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, has issued a global call for a moratorium on banning robots designed to kill. This topic had already been rejected by the United States during the conflict with Anthropic.
Four months after a public spat between the US government and Anthropic over the startup’s refusal to use its artificial intelligence models to control autonomous weapons, António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, is now taking aim at “killer robots”, those AI-controlled machines designed for ground conflict.
The head of an international organization is calling for a ban on these robots: “Machines that select and shoot at targets, destroying lives, without human control or judgment, are morally abhorrent,” he said during a speech on AI governance in Geneva. “Let’s call them killer robots.”
The words are strong, but nevertheless betray a certain helplessness.
Killer robots are already widely used
As the Wall Street Journal explains, these famous “killer robots” are increasingly being used in war zones, especially as artificial intelligence models allow the robots to gain greater autonomy. AI is also widely used by military forces and agencies such as the Pentagon, equipped with Mythos, the most powerful anthropic model.
Antonio Guterres’s call is in some ways similar to that of Pope Leo XIV, who called for greater control over artificial intelligence, as well as a ban on autonomous weapons. He described AI as a threat that risks “normalizing anti-human views.”
For companies specializing in the autonomous weapons sector, the idea is not to let the robot do its thing, but to use its technology to better control it. Thus, the person will constantly monitor the situation. The speech contradicts concerns raised by several activists seeking to stop AI in the military sector, fearing it will run out of control.
According to António Guterres, we should not “wait for atrocities to take effect.” The UN Secretary-General insists that decisions that lead to the taking of human life remain “in the hands of humanity.” He seems to be asking a simple question: what would humanity be like if it abandoned its responsibilities in the face of the worst it could do?