Robot assassins that recognise targets may be ‘dystopian future’ of warfare, envoy warns UN
Swarms of assassin drones could be sent across borders as militants incorporate deadlier smart weapons into their arsenals, the UAE ambassador to the UN has said.
Lana Nusseibeh urged Security Council members to act against the spread of artificial intelligence systems and drones before the world enters a “dystopian future” of terrorists sending out killer robots.
She said Al Qaeda, ISIS and other extremist groups radicalise and recruit through the internet, while the Houthi militia fighting Yemen’s government has used increasingly advanced weapons to attack its neighbours.
“In the near future, it will be possible that swarms of drones, utilised by terrorist groups, could carry out cross-border attacks using facial technology and other features enabled by artificial intelligence,” she said.
Worse still, stealth weapons from the “nefarious side of technology” could carry out flying assassinations “without the
possibility of attribution to either a state or non-state group”.
Ms Nusseibeh pointed to the Houthis, who have used Iran-supplied drone gear to attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“Drones do not just operate in the air,” she said.
A remotely operated drone boat laden with explosives was used by the rebels in a failed attack on an oil tanker off Yemen in 2020, she said.
“If successful, the attack would have had devastating effects not only on the tanker
and its crew but on the environment, on global supply routes and on local communities.”
Ms Nusseibeh said killer weapons were evolving at “warp speed”, with drones that “fly faster, travel further, carry larger payloads” and use facial recognition among other tools.
“We’re in this Hobbesian state of nature regarding the use of technology by super-empowered, non-state actors,” she told diplomats in New York. “Inaction is not an option. Because when there is no regulation, we’re only encouraging proliferation.”
The Security Council members met against a backdrop of growing global concern about new warfare technology.
Russia claims to have used powerful lasers in its war with Ukraine and both sides in the conflict have admitted to the routine use of drones.
The New York-based campaign group Human Rights Watch says China, Israel, South Korea, Russia, Britain and the US are already developing technology that could give rise to fully autonomous weapons.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said authoritarian governments were using technology to suppress “freedom of expression and spread disinformation”.
“The Russian government continues to shut down, restrict and degrade internet connectivity, censor content, spread disinformation online and intimidate and arrest journalists for reporting the truth about its invasion” of Ukraine, she said.
“These practices are as wrong as they are widespread.”