Weapons and Advanced Technology: Don’t Turn War into a Testing Ground for AI Weapons

Editorial

14:47 JST, March 12, 2026

Artificial intelligence-equipped drones are transforming the battlefield. Following their extensive use by both Russia and Ukraine during Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the U.S. military has deployed them in attacks on Iran.

The reality that numerous lives are being taken with a single video game-like operation is horrifying.

The U.S. military has deployed autonomous suicide drones for the first time in combat during its attacks on Iran. These offer the advantages of minimizing U.S. casualties and enabling low-cost mass production. Iran, too, has used drones to destroy oil and other facilities in neighboring countries.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the Russian military is employing drones in attacks hunting civilians, dubbed “human safari.” This is utterly barbaric.

With the advent of AI, the sense of actually killing and hurting people on the battlefield may be becoming increasingly weak.

The White House posted a video combining actual footage from the attacks on Iran with scenes from a popular video game. The notion of equating war with gaming is staggering. It is no wonder that war veterans and others criticized it, saying that war is not a game.

Concerns are also inevitably raised about U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration pushing ahead with the military use of AI. It demanded that U.S. startup Anthropic lift restrictions on the military use of its AI technology, threatening to exclude the company from government procurement contracts after the firm refused to do so.

The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov proposed the Three Laws of Robotics, including “A robot may not injure a human being,” in one of his works in 1950. Now that AI is being used for military purposes, human beings must get back to the basics once more.

If fully autonomous lethal weapons operating beyond human involvement are put into practical use, humanity as a whole could come under threat.

In December last year, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution explicitly stating the need for AI regulations in the military sphere. While 167 countries, including Japan, voted in favor, five nations, such as the United States, Israel and Russia, opposed it.

The United States, in particular, strongly opposes the creation of multilateral rules to regulate AI. Washington likely fears that its advantage as a nation with advanced AI would be undermined.

However, if it turns a blind eye to the dangers of cutting-edge technology, there is no guarantee that even a military superpower like the United States will be able to escape from the fear of lethal AI.

Japan maintains a position against developing or using weapons that violate international humanitarian law, which prohibits indiscriminate and other attacks. Tokyo should take the lead in establishing legally binding international rules through the United Nations.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, March 12, 2026)