In a joint statement earlier this week, United Nations chief António Guterres and Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric Egger sent out an urgent message.
“We are now dangerously close to crossing a moral red line: the autonomous targeting of humans by machines,” they said.
But while international humanitarian law strictly forbids targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, Russia is reportedly already using AI-controlled drones to kill innocent people in Ukraine.
Ukrainian military commanders and forensics experts told the New York Times that fully autonomous Russian drones, piloted by an experimental AI system, are targeting civilians back on the ground in Zaporizhzhia, a city in southeastern Ukraine. One such drone was able to pick out its exact target — propane tanks near a gas station — and strike them.
