United Nations Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The Washington Post disclosed that U.S. and Russian representatives revised the draft behind closed doors in the final stage of negotiations on lethal autonomous weapons held here earlier this month, deleting a number of AI weapon safety specifications. (Reuters photo)
The United States and Russia, which are confronting each other on the battlefield in Ukraine, have rarely joined forces in an international negotiation at the United Nations on the regulation of lethal autonomous weapons. Hundreds of diplomats from around the world met in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this month in an attempt to advance the first draft of an international agreement regulating the use of lethal autonomous weapons; however, informed sources and diplomatic documents revealed that representatives from the United States and Russia rarely joined forces in the final stages to revise the draft, jointly deleting a number of key safety provisions including "the target must be reviewed by humans before launching an attack."
The Washington Post exclusively reported on the 26th that the closed-door negotiations took place on the last day of negotiations. People familiar with the matter pointed out that during the intensive consultations that followed for about 15 hours, U.S. and Russian diplomats jointly made significant changes to the document, one by one deleting many of the safeguard clauses originally designed by each country to restrict lethal autonomous weapons.
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According to people familiar with the matter, the US and Russian delegations deleted the language requiring AI weapon systems to operate in a "predictable" and "reliable" manner, and removed the clause that "ethical considerations" must be included when using AI weapons; more controversially, the two countries further deleted the requirement that AI-generated military targets must be reviewed by humans before launching an attack.
Camera closes, American and Russian lawyers make intensive revisions
People familiar with the matter pointed out that this modification process was carried out in a closed-door meeting with the United Nations' live cameras turned off and non-governmental organization observers invited away. The United States and Russia each sent about 10 legal experts, nearly twice the number of other delegations. The speed of revision was so fast that some delegations were overwhelmed. One participant even described the process as being "cut in pieces by a thousand knives."
The U.S. State Department, the Russian Foreign Ministry and the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post.
The Washington Post pointed out that the weakening of this provision comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Defense is accelerating the integration of AI technology into battlefield strategies. The report mentioned that the application of AI in the military has gradually entered actual combat. Within 24 hours after the outbreak of the US-Iraq war, the US military used Anthropic's chatbot to identify nearly 1,000 targets; Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip also rely heavily on AI systems.
Although OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently called for the establishment of a global AI regulatory framework at the United Nations, the Trump administration has strongly resisted international regulation. U.S. President Trump recently stated publicly at the United Nations General Assembly that the United States completely rejects any "globalist plan" that attempts to control AI.
Verity Coyle, deputy director of the Crisis, Conflict and Weapons Department of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), warned that if the rules are weakened, it may allow machines to make life and death decisions without human control, causing more civilian casualties, reducing the level of accountability, and making war faster towards automation with higher risks.
Representatives from various countries are expected to discuss again in Geneva in November whether to obtain a formal authorization for relevant negotiations or to further promote a legally binding treaty.
