A machine gun drone during a demonstration of capabilities by the German army on May 4, 2026 near Munster, Germany. Photo / Getty Images
The United Nations and the Red Cross have warned that the world is “dangerously close” to a future where so-called “killer robots” could target humans, and issued an urgent appeal for international regulation of autonomous weapons.
The warning follows a 2023 call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Mirjana
Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), for specific bans and restrictions on the rapidly developing technology by this year.
In a joint statement, Guterres and Spoljaric said: “We are now dangerously close to crossing a moral red line: the autonomous targeting of humans by machines.”
Lethal autonomous weapon systems are generally understood as weapon systems that select targets and apply force without human intervention.
Laurent Gisel, head of ICRC’s arms and conduct of hostilities unit, said: “Autonomous weapon systems are already used in the battlefield, they are used in broader environments, and that increases the risk for civilians being killed.”
There has so far been no confirmed use of fully autonomous weapons to directly target humans, according to experts.
But with global tensions soaring and conflicts raging in the Middle East and in Ukraine, where drone warfare has become a major feature, fears abound that it could happen soon.
After years of discussions, countries are due to decide in November whether to launch full-on treaty negotiations.
Guterres and Spoljaric said: “We urge states to seize this moment … A failure to act quickly and decisively will cost lives.
“Autonomous weapon systems are not part of a distant future: a race towards greater autonomy in weapons systems is already well underway.
“Future generations will ask whether leaders acted when there was still a chance to set limits before these weapons proliferated beyond control.”
Gisel stressed that the ICRC was not calling for prohibitions of all autonomous weapons systems.
But he said bans were essential on two categories of weapons that are “the most unacceptable” and “present the biggest risks of international humanitarian law violations with grave humanitarian consequences and an increase in the human cost of armed conflict”.
Those categories were “unpredictable autonomous weapons”, where “the operators cannot adequately predict, anticipate the effects of the use of force”, and “anti-personnel autonomous weapons systems”, which directly target human beings.
