The World Council of Churches has joined nearly 200 civil society organizations in calling for a ban on the use of artificial intelligence in military kill chains, warning that the technology poses growing risks to human dignity and international law.
The ecumenical body announced June 15 that it had signed a joint statement urging governments and technology companies to stop developing and deploying AI systems used in targeting and lethal military operations.
The appeal came as the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs held informal discussions June 15-17 on “Artificial intelligence in the military domain and its implications for international peace and security.”
The statement identified AI decision-support systems, target generation systems, remote biometric surveillance tools, and multimodal AI models, including large language models, among the technologies raising concern.
The announcement also follows the publication of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, which focuses on artificial intelligence and the protection of human dignity in the digital age.
“Legal scholars and practitioners, technical experts, tech workers, UN special rapporteurs, and investigative journalists have long warned against the development and deployment of AI in warfare, given the heightened risk of international crimes,” the statement read.
It added that “real-world deployments indicate that AI is actually facilitating more violent, dehumanizing, and destructive methods of warfare,” despite claims that such technologies can make military operations more effective or precise.
The signatories urged states to ensure that AI systems are not designed, developed, or deployed in ways that contribute to violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
The group also warned that “AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons” and asserted that “Actors who choose to deploy AI systems that are used to commit international crimes must be held criminally responsible.”
Peter Prove, director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches in International Affairs, said autonomous weapons operating without meaningful human control present “one of the most challenging of the many moral issues that surround the growing impact of AI in our world and societies.”
“That is why the WCC has already for some time been advocating for a pre-emptive ban on so-called ‘killer robots’,” he said.
