Civil society coalition warns AI warfare erodes humanitarian law safeguards – JURIST

More than 200 civil society groups and advocates on Monday called for an immediate halt to the use of artificial intelligence systems in military “kill chains,” warning that AI-accelerated warfare risks facilitating violations of international criminal, human rights and humanitarian law.

The statement warned that AI systems embedded in kill chains are accelerating the speed and scale of military assaults in ways that undermine foundational principles of humanitarian law, including distinction, proportionality and precaution. The signatories said that claimed safeguards such as “human in the loop” mechanisms cannot prevent the lethal consequences of AI-accelerated targeting, but instead risk becoming a means of “rubber-stamping” killing at greatly accelerated speed and scale.

The coalition pointed to US and Israeli strikes on Iran earlier this year as an example, noting that AI tools for target generation enabled strikes on nearly 2,000 targets within the first 48 hours of the campaign. In Gaza, Israel deployed AI targeting tools including Lavender, Gospel and Where’s Daddy, which the statement said may “contribute to the obfuscation of international crimes behind a veneer of perceived algorithmic objectivity.”

The statement named several major technology companies. OpenAI has agreed to provide AI services to the US Department of Defense, and Google has contracted with the Defense Department to develop prototype frontier AI capabilities for war-fighting. Anthropic’s Claude large language model has reportedly played a role in supporting US attacks on Iran. The statement cited a standoff between Anthropic and the US government over the military use, and noted that more than 560 Google employees signed an open letter in April urging the company to refuse classified military AI use.

The signatories urged tech companies to refrain from military contracts with agencies that commit violations of international law, and to halt AI decision-support systems for targeting. They called on states to end AI use in military targeting and to provide transparency on how it is currently being deployed in combat. The statement noted that Amnesty International wrote to both OpenAI and Anthropic on their human rights policies regarding generative AI in military contexts; only OpenAI had responded at the time of publication.