AI regulators fear getting drowned out by hype of wars

BERLIN — A fighter jet hurtles toward an adversary head-on. Mere moments before a collision, it swerves — but not before dealing a lethal blow to its opponent.

This risky maneuver would be reckless even for the most skilled pilot. But to artificial intelligence, such a simulation scenario showcases one of the most effective dogfighting techniques , scoring kill rates of nearly 100% against human pilots.

In a warfighting revolution turbocharged by the conflict in Ukraine , autonomous decision-making is quickly reshaping modern combat, experts told Defense News in a series of interviews.

Weapons that can decide for themselves whom or what to target — and even when to kill — are entering military arsenals. They have experts worried that an uncontrolled arms race is emerging, and that warfare could become so fast-paced that humans cannot keep up.

It is the speed, in particular, that may prove a “slippery slope,” said Natasha Bajema, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a nongovernmental organization. As the speed of conflict increases with greater autonomy on the battlefield, the incentives to delegate even more functions to the machines could become ever stronger.

“Do we really think that in the middle of a battle between China and the U.S., someone is going to say: ‘Hold on, we can’t let the machine do that’?” Bajema asked, referring to the allure of what she described as war moving at machine speed.

“It’s the most competitive race for advantage that we’ve seen since the race for nuclear weapons,” she added.

The appetite for more autonomy in weapons, fanned by combat in Ukraine and Gaza , has drowned out long-standing calls for limits on AI in military applications. But they still exist.

Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, the director of the Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Department of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, called the scenario of trigger-pulling, AI-enabled robots a true “ Oppenheimer moment ,” a reference to the birth of the atomic bomb in the 1940s.

Austria has been leading an international push to bring governments from around the world to the table to draft the rules of war for a new era.

In late April, the country’s government hosted the first global conference on autonomous weapon systems in Vienna’s grand Hofburg Palace. Kmentt said it exceeded his expectations.

“At times during the preparations, I was concerned about attendance, that the room would be half empty,” the ambassador recalled in an interview with Defense News. Instead, there were more than 1,000 delegates from 144 countries present in Vienna.

“Even those states that used to see the topic as some sort of sci-fi now perceive it as being incredibly timely,” he said.

Much of the Global South — a term sometimes used to couple countries that reject the hierarchy of world politics — now seems interested in restricting the technology, according to Kmentt, though little could be achieved without buy-in from the major global powers.

Unintended consequences

For all their military appeal, AI-enabled weapons come with the flaws of a technology still in its infancy. Machine vision, in particular, is still too prone to errors, said Zachary Kallenborn, lead researcher at Looking Glass USA, a consultancy that deals with questions surrounding advanced weapons systems.

“A single pixel is enough to confuse a bomber with a dog, a civilian with a combatant,” he said.

In the coming years, experts expect to see an accumulating number of autonomous weapons on the battlefield with increasingly sophisticated abilities. Even without technological mishaps, this might lead to a heightened risk of misunderstanding.

The disposable nature of drones, for example, could lead to more aggressive or risky behaviors, said Bajema. Intercepting an autonomous system would likely elicit a different reaction among adversaries than downing a crewed plane, she said, but where precisely the line falls is hard to determine.

The race toward AI is governed by what she called the “terminator problem” — if one state has it, all believe they need it to feel secure — an environment that makes regulating the technology so difficult.

Moreover, today’s geopolitical climate is not very amenable to multilateral arms control, she added.

Given those odds, Kmentt said he is merely looking for a compromise.

“It’s clear that there will be no universal consensus on the topic,” he noted. “There’s hardly any issue where this exists, and certain countries seem to have no interest in developing international law. So we have to accept that, and instead work together with those countries that are interested in developing these rules.”

But he admitted to being somewhat pessimistic about the chances of success.

“These weapons will majorly define the future of armed conflicts, and as a result the voices of militaries worldwide who want these weapons will become louder and louder,” Kmentt predicted.

For now, the target date of 2026 looms large for the community of AI nonproliferation advocates; it refers to the United Nations’ mandate of setting “clear prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapon systems,” in the words of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

“So far, there is insufficient political will to make something happen due to the difficult geopolitical situation,” Kmentt said.

The 2026 target is not an arbitrary date, he added. “If we haven’t succeeded with anything by then, the window for preventive action has closed.”

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

柏林——一架战斗机迎头冲向敌机。就在即将相撞的前一刻，它突然转向——但在此之前，它已经给了对手致命一击。

即使对于技术最娴熟的飞行员来说，这种冒险的机动动作也是鲁莽的。但对于人工智能而言，这样的模拟场景展示了一种最有效的空战技巧，对人类飞行员的击落率接近100%。

专家在接受《防务新闻》一系列采访时表示，在乌克兰冲突加速推动的战争革命中，自主决策正在迅速重塑现代战争。

能够自主决定攻击目标（包括何时攻击）的武器正在进入军火库。专家们担忧，一场失控的军备竞赛正在酝酿，战争节奏可能会变得如此之快，以至于人类无法应对。

詹姆斯·马丁防扩散研究中心（一家非政府组织）的高级研究员娜塔莎·巴杰玛表示，尤其速度的提升可能会带来“危险的滑坡效应”。随着冲突速度的加快和战场自主性的增强，将更多功能委托给机器的动机可能会越来越强。

“我们真的认为，在中美交战之际，会有人说：‘等等，我们不能让机器那样做’吗？”巴杰玛问道，她指的是她所描述的那种以机器速度进行的战争的诱惑力。

她补充说：“这是我们自核武器竞赛以来所见过的竞争最激烈的优势争夺战。”

乌克兰和加沙的冲突加剧了人们对武器自主性的渴望，这种渴望掩盖了长期以来限制人工智能在军事应用中的呼声。但这些呼声依然存在。

奥地利外交部裁军、军备控制和不扩散司司长亚历山大·克门特大使称，由人工智能驱动的机器人扣动扳机的场景是真正的“奥本海默时刻”，指的是 20 世纪 40 年代原子弹的诞生。

奥地利一直领导着一项国际行动，旨在促使世界各国政府坐下来共同制定新时代的战争规则。

四月下旬，该国政府在维也纳宏伟的霍夫堡宫举办了首届全球自主武器系统大会。克门特表示，大会成果超出了他的预期。

“在筹备期间，我一度担心出席人数，怕会议室会空出一半，”大使在接受《防务新闻》采访时回忆道。但最终，来自144个国家的1000多名代表齐聚维也纳。

他说：“即使是那些过去将这个话题视为科幻小说的国家，现在也认为它非常具有现实意义。”

据克门特称，全球南方的大部分国家（有时用这个词来指代那些拒绝世界政治等级制度的国家）现在似乎对限制这项技术很感兴趣，但如果没有主要全球大国的支持，恐怕很难取得什么成果。

意想不到的后果

尽管人工智能武器具有巨大的军事吸引力，但这项技术仍处于起步阶段，存在诸多缺陷。美国咨询公司Looking Glass USA的首席研究员扎卡里·卡伦伯恩表示，尤其是机器视觉技术，仍然极易出错。Looking Glass USA是一家专门研究先进武器系统相关问题的咨询公司。

他说：“一个像素的偏差就足以将轰炸机飞行员与狗混淆，将平民与战斗人员混淆。”

专家预计，未来几年战场上将出现数量不断增加、能力日益复杂的自主武器。即使没有技术故障，这也可能导致误解风险的增加。

巴杰玛指出，无人机的一次性使用特性可能会导致更具攻击性或冒险性的行为。她表示，拦截自主系统可能与击落有人驾驶飞机相比，在敌方引发的反应截然不同，但两者之间的界限究竟在哪里，很难确定。

她称人工智能竞赛受制于“终结者问题”——如果一个国家拥有了人工智能，所有国家都认为自己需要人工智能才能感到安全——这种环境使得监管这项技术变得非常困难。

她还补充说，此外，当前的地缘政治环境不太有利于多边军控。

鉴于这种可能性，克门特表示他只是在寻求一种折衷方案。

他指出：“很显然，在这个问题上不会达成普遍共识。几乎没有哪个问题存在这种共识，而且某些国家似乎对制定国际法毫无兴趣。因此，我们必须接受这一点，转而与那些有兴趣制定这些规则的国家合作。”

但他承认自己对成功的机会有些悲观。

“这些武器将在很大程度上决定未来武装冲突的走向，因此，世界各地想要获得这些武器的军队的声音将会越来越大，”克门特预测道。

目前，2026 年这个目标日期对于人工智能不扩散倡导者群体来说意义重大；正如联合国秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯所说，它指的是联合国“明确禁止和限制自主武器系统”的任务。

“到目前为止，由于地缘政治形势复杂，缺乏足够的政治意愿来促成一些事情的发生，”克门特说。

他补充说，2026年的目标日期并非随意设定。“如果到那时我们还没有取得任何进展，那么采取预防措施的窗口期就关闭了。”

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。