US, Russia strip AI safeguards from UN weapons draft
The two countries removed provisions on predictability, ethics and human review from a Geneva draft on autonomous weapons, the Washington Post reported, as more than 70 nations sought binding rules.
U.S. and Russian diplomats stripped a range of AI safeguards from a draft United Nations treaty on lethal autonomous weapons, the Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the talks.
https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/2103869726476710238
At the talks in Geneva this month, negotiators from both countries removed language requiring AI weapons to be "predictable" and "reliable," and that ethics be considered in their design. They also dropped a requirement that a human check AI-selected targets before a strike, the Post said. Each delegation sent roughly ten lawyers and spent about 15 hours negotiating the changes.
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2103874739982741888
More than 70 countries want the Geneva draft to serve as the basis for a binding treaty, the Post reported, but the talks operate by consensus, letting two governments block the rest. The document would set the first legally binding rules governing AI-directed weapons in combat.
Negotiators are due to meet again in November to decide whether the talks advance toward a binding treaty. Neither the U.S. government nor Russia's has commented publicly on the removed provisions, and it is not clear whether the safeguards could be restored before then.