As the use of autonomous weapons systems becomes an increasingly prominent feature of modern warfare, the Vatican is backing new restrictions on AI-driven lethal autonomous weapon systems. Source: Crux.
Italian Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the UN in Geneva, argued for a moratorium on the development of weapons systems that can make firing decisions without human intervention – often dubbed “killer robots”- during an August 26 address to a group of experts meeting in the Swiss city.
“It is profoundly distressing,” Archbishop Balestrero said, “that, adding to the suffering caused by armed conflicts, the battlefields are also becoming testing grounds for more and more sophisticated weapons.”
In particular, he insisted that autonomous weapons systems can never be considered “morally responsible entities”.
“The human person, endowed with reason, possesses a unique capacity for moral judgement and ethical decision-making that cannot be replicated by any set of algorithms, no matter how complex,” Archbishop Balestrero said.
The Vatican’s push comes as Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign policy official, pressed a gathering of foreign ministers in Brussels to allow Ukraine to use weapons supplied by EU member nations to attack Russian targets.
“The weaponry that we are providing to Ukraine has to have full use, and the restrictions have to be lifted in order for the Ukrainians to be able to target the places where Russia is bombing them. Otherwise, the weaponry is useless,” Mr Borrell told reporters.
While most of the combat between Ukraine and Russia is being waged with conventional weaponry, observers say the conflict has also become a laboratory for testing new armaments, including AI-driven autonomous systems.
According to multiple reports, autonomous weapons are also part of the Israeli arsenal being deployed in its ongoing conflict in Gaza.
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As ‘killer robots’ wage war in Ukraine and Gaza, Vatican calls for a ban (Crux)
