Human Rights Watch Sounds Alarm on ‘Killer Robots’
Autonomous weapons systems—commonly referred to as “killer robots”—pose serious and far-reaching risks to human rights in both wartime and peacetime, Human Rights Watch warned in a report released today.
The 61-page report, titled “A Hazard to Human Rights: Autonomous Weapons Systems and Digital Decision-Making,” argues that these technologies, which are capable of selecting and attacking targets based on sensor data rather than human judgment, undermine the rights to life, peaceful assembly, privacy, and legal remedy. They also challenge fundamental principles of human dignity and non-discrimination.
The organization called upon governments around the world to urgently pursue a multilateral treaty that would establish clear legal restrictions on the development and deployment of such systems. With growing military investments and rapid technological advances, Human Rights Watch warned that the lack of meaningful human control over lethal force represents a dire and imminent threat to global human rights protections.
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