UN Secretary-General António Guterres and International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric Egger have issued a joint statement warning that the world is close to allowing machines to kill without human decision, and urging states to agree binding limits.
“We are now dangerously close to crossing a moral red line: the autonomous targeting of humans by machines,” the two said.
The statement renews a call the pair made in 2023, when they asked governments to adopt specific bans and restrictions on lethal autonomous weapons by 2026 — a deadline now expiring without a treaty. “Today, we renew this call with even greater urgency,” they said, adding that while their fundamental concerns remain unchanged, “the risks have intensified.”
Lethal autonomous weapon systems are generally understood as systems that select targets and apply force without human intervention. Guterres and Spoljaric argued the technology is no longer hypothetical: “Autonomous weapon systems are not part of a distant future: a race towards greater autonomy in weapons systems is already well under way.”
The warning comes with drone warfare now a central feature of fighting in Ukraine and the Middle East, where the gap between remotely piloted systems and target selection by software has narrowed sharply.
The two leaders pointed to warnings raised by the engineers building the systems. “When the architects of this technology are calling for limits, states cannot afford to remain passive,” they said.
Discussions on a possible treaty regulating autonomous weapons have run for roughly a decade without producing binding rules.
“Future generations will ask whether leaders acted when there was still a chance to set limits before these weapons proliferated beyond control,” Guterres and Spoljaric said.
The statement was carried in Sri Lanka by the Daily Mirror, running international wire copy.
