It was only a matter of time.  The world has entered a new age of warfare and, like the dropping of the first atomic bomb, it will be hard to draw back.

In 2016, an open letter with 33,783 signatories including Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Stuart Russell and Steve Wozniak, called for a ban on “offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control” [FLI16]. Successive UN Secretary Generals have declared lethal autonomous weapons systems to be “politically unacceptable and morally repugnant“ [UN26].  A few weeks ago, the Pope’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas argued that “the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms” [PL26].

Over recent years, we have edged ever closer with drone warfare in the Ukraine [Be23] and the use of AI target identification systems such as ‘The Gospel’ by the Israeli forces in Gaza [DM23] and the implication of Maven in the US strike that killed 175 schoolchildren in Iran [Ba26].  Of course, ultimately humans deploy these systems, and humans in principle are okaying the target selection, no matter how perfunctorily.

However, according to Channel 4’s Substack blog, barely a week after Pope Leo XIV’s Encyclical, we have crossed the Rubicon.  It reports that Ukraine are deploying fully autonomous Hornet drones, which are sent to a ‘kill zone’ and then strike anything that the onboard AI identifies as a potential target [Hi26].  Russia will, no doubt, catch up soon and then NATO and the US will feel they need to have such weapons battle ready.

Arguably hitting anything within a kill zone is no different from a poorly aimed Russian artillery shell, low-accuracy ballistic missile or evacuation orders such as used by the US in Fallujah and more recently by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon.  However, the use of AI for this is widely considered to be of a different ethical order, as voiced in the various international statements above, not least because of the dangers of a full-on AI arms race.

This feels as though it should be front page news given the prominence of AI stories generally.  It is possible that Channel 4 have jumped the gun, confusing the use of AI GPS-resistant terrain-following guidance [DE26], as used by early cruise missiles, with statements by a UK-Ukraine startup describing near-future scenarios [MD26].  The BBC simply refer to the Hornet as an “AI drone” without giving details [Co26]; however, France 24 also carries the story of fully autonomous operation [Mr26].

If this are accurate, it may be that the press do not want to foreground stories that reflect badly on an ally. Certainly, the UK seems to be softening its stance on fully autonomous weapons with recent statements by the UK armed forces minister, Al Carns, that while there “must be a human in the loop”, it must also (self-contradictorily) be possible to “take the human out of the loop when required” [Cl26] and the David Omand, the ex-head of ex-GCHQ, has changed his previous view that such autonomous weapons could not comply with international humanitarian law and now believes that they can be programmed with a “moral code” [MD26b].  Only a few months ago such statements would have sounded untenable, not least with AI exhibiting gung-ho tactics in nuclear war simulations [Pa26] and growing numbers of examples where AI has ignored its guardrails causing real-world damage to businesses and individuals [Al26,Bo26].

The pragmatics of warfare are fast overtaking the ethics of humanity.

References

[Al26] Tom Allen (2026). AI coding agent goes rogue, deletes company database in nine seconds. Computing, 29 April 2026. https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2026/ai/ai-coding-agent-goes-rogue

[Ba26]  Kevin T Baker (2026).  AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying. The Guardian, Thu 26 Mar 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blame-for-the-iran-school-bombing-the-truth-is-far-more-worrying

[Be23] Samuel Bendett (2023). Roles and implications of AI in the Russian–Ukrainian conflict. Russia Matters, Harvard Kennedy School (20 July 2023).  https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/roles-and-implications-ai-russian-ukrainian-conflict

[Bo26] Robert Booth (2026). Number of AI chatbots ignoring human instructions increasing, study says. The Guardian, 27 Mar 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/27/number-of-ai-chatbots-ignoring-human-instructions-increasing-study-says

[Cl26]  Charles Clover (2026).  UK military looks at allowing lethal strikes without human approval. The Financial Times, May 30, 2026.  https://www.ft.com/content/a21607ce-c25b-40ab-bd9c-e0262d344c8c

[Co26] Thomas Copeland and Paul Brown (2026). Ukraine using AI drones to strike vital convoys supplying Russian troops. BBC Verify, 30 May 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjp0n7rn41o

[DM23] Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan, and Dan Sabbagh (2023). ‘The Gospel’: How Israel uses AI to select bombing targets in Gaza. The Guardian (1 Dec. 2023).  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/the-gospel-how-israel-uses-ai-to-select-bombing-targets

[DE26]  Defence Express (2026). What’s Special About Hornet UAV Ukrainians Using to Destroy russian Logistics, Where Did It Come From, What Are Its Key Features.  Defence Express, May 24, 2026  https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/whats_special_about_the_hornet_uav_that_ukrainians_using_to_destroy_russian_logistics_where_did_it_come_from_and_what_are_its_key_features-18597.html

[FLI16] Future of Life Institute (2016). Autonomous Weapons Open Letter: AI & Robotics Researchers. Published 9 February, 2016  (33,783 signatories including Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Stuart Russell and Steve Wozniak).  https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/open-letter-autonomous-weapons-ai-robotics/

[Hi26]  Lindsey Hilsum (2026).  How drones and AI are turning the tide in Ukraine war.  Channel 4 News Blog, May 23, 2026.  https://channel4news.substack.com/p/how-drones-and-ai-are-turning-the

[Mr26]  Guillaume Maurice (2026). Ukraine: How a kamikaze drone partially operated by AI is attacking Russian convoys. France 24, 01/06/2026. https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260601-ukraine-kamikaze-drone-partially-operated-ai-attacking-russian-convoys

[MD26b]  Dan Milmo and Aisha Down (2026).  Future AI weapons such as drones should have moral code, says former UK spy chief.  The Guardian, Wed 3 Jun 2026.  https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/03/ai-weapons-drones-moral-code-former-uk-gchq-chief-david-omand

[MD26]  Dan Milmo and Aisha Down (2026).  Can autonomous AI-powered killer drones take morality onboard? The Guardian, Wed 3 Jun 2026.   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/03/can-autonomous-ai-powered-killer-drones-take-morality-onboard

[Pa26]  Payne, Kenneth (2026). AI Arms and Influence: frontier models exhibit sophisticated reasoning in simulated nuclear crises. arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.14740. https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14740

[PL26] Pope Leo XIV (2026).  Encyclical letter: Magnifica Humanitas of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV on Safeguarding The Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.  Holy See 15 May, 2026. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

[UN26]  UNODA (2016). Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. Accessed 1/6/2026.  https://disarmament.unoda.org/en/our-work/emerging-challenges/lethal-autonomous-weapon-systems