By Dan Milmo,Aisha Down
Publication Date: 2026-06-03 11:00:00
SShould the AI-powered drones of the future have a license to kill? The question is becoming increasingly urgent as governments and the defense industry realize that drone systems will play an increasingly important role in future warfare.
As drones are used in large numbers in the Ukraine war and artificial intelligence is used to support bombing missions in the Iran conflict, some observers believe that the weapons will need to operate with increased operational autonomy, which means they will need something approaching a moral framework.
Last year, Mustafa Suleyman, managing director of Microsoft’s AI division and co-founder of the British company DeepMind, was clear on the question of whether machines make moral decisions. He said: “AIs cannot be human beings – or moral beings.”
David Omand, the former head of Britain’s spy agency GCHQ, told the Guardian he believes AI can create a “moral” configuration for unmanned weapons, while Britain’s Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said…
