In Geneva, 128 countries have taken an important step to prevent killer robots from getting out of hand in the future. These are agreements about weapon systems that independently identify, select, and attack targets using artificial intelligence.
It is a race against time, as machines are already more often deciding over life and death. Think, for example, of the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and Sudan. Yet a special working group has been working on this for ten years now.
Deep into the night, they managed to reach an agreement: there is now, for example, a written definition of what self-thinking, lethal weapon systems actually are, which systems are acceptable, and who holds responsibility for their use.
The agreements are not yet binding but could lead to internationally legally binding agreements and eventually perhaps even a new treaty. A treaty like the ones that exist for mines and cluster munitions.
One word
Whether it would all succeed remained tense until deep into the night. "It was almost 3 a.m., the moment when the lights would go out in the conference room," says Dutch diplomat and disarmament ambassador Robert in den Bosch by phone from Geneva. In recent years, he has led the process.
In the last minutes, everything depended on one word. "Words matter enormously in such a process," In den Bosch explains. At the end, one of the negotiators was still blocking. "We gave him five minutes to call the ministry of his home country. When he came back, we could literally and figuratively hammer it out."
Military world powers
For In den Bosch, it was a huge relief that it succeeded because it was no easy task. At the table were also the great military world powers, such as Russia, China, the United States, and India.
"Russia and the United States are the hardest nuts to crack." But countries with a smaller war industry could also be difficult because they found the text not strong enough. In den Bosch: "In the end, it is a compromise that no country is 100 percent happy with, but the strength is that 128 countries stand behind it."
That compromise is exactly where, according to Nicole van Rooijen, director of Stop Killer Robots, the friction lies. "It is really a shame that all the work states have done on the text over the past three years was so strongly watered down in the last hours," she responded to news agency Reuters.
Dutch armed forces
The Netherlands also agreed to the agreements. Our armed forces increasingly deploy weapon systems controlled by artificial intelligence.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Berendsen responds on X: "Now that military technology is developing rapidly, this is an important step in regulating lethal autonomous weapon systems." Minister of Defence Yesilgöz also responds on the platform. "Warfare is changing due to new technology. That is precisely why good international agreements are urgently needed," she writes.
New treaty?
But do not expect new laws or rules or a new treaty soon. The countries will look in November at whether that is necessary and what it should look like. A process that can again take years.