Ukraine war must end before AI is used on the battlefield, Zelensky tells UN

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the United Nations on Wednesday that the Ukraine War — and all current wars must end — before artificial intelligence is deployed to the battlefield to make life-and-death decisions.

Read more Remains of Texas college student Jason Landry ID’d 6 years after he vanished driving home for Christmas

Speaking before the UN General Assembly in New York, Zelensky warned that the time would soon come when AI dictates how wars are conducted as smarter and smarter weapons are made at a quickening pace.

“We need to slow it down before we reach the next stage, because as early as next year, there is already a real possibility that AI, not only people, will begin to decide what happens on the battlefield, and we need peace before we reach that point,” he said.

“If you listen to some of the biggest believers in the development of AI, they say today AI still remains mostly digital, but one day AI will move from the digital world to shaping atoms.

“And when that happens, we had better be at peace,” he added.  

Fears of AI being deployed on the battlefield were sparked last month after a Russian drone guided by AI killed three Ukrainians, including a 19-year-old university student.

The Ukraine war has highlighted the speed at which new technology can be developed and deployed in war, with drones becoming the standout method to conduct warfare.

Read more Trump’s best bet to cool the Ukraine war and cut oil prices starts with Elon Musk

Zelensky joined dozens of world leaders and tech giants in calling for AI development to slow down, with former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warning that the technology had the potential to “kill us all by the end of the decade.”

President Trump, however, rejected the dire warnings during his speech before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, slamming the heavy criticism against the tech as a means to “construct a globalist scheme to control the artificial intelligence.”

The president also rejected the term AI and sought to replace it with a new label, “super intelligence.”

“Whoever wins ‘super intelligence’ wins. That’s the group that wins,” he said. “And we’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else. And we’re going to keep it that way.”

The president did suggest that the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies could be used to rein in the technology if it proves to be too dangerous.

Read more Gregg Popovich marries ex-wife of former Spurs assistant coach