Arms race between states

There is no treaty on autonomous weapons for a structural reason, not for lack of agreement about the facts. The forum that could produce one —the group of experts of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons— works by consensus, which gives a veto to any of the 128 High Contracting Parties, including those that build and use these weapons ^[208]Report of the 2024-2025-2026 sessions of the Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (CCW/GGE.1/2026/CRP.1/Rev.1)Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems · 2026 · official documentView source ↗Accessed on 9 September 2026. The forum where there is an overwhelming majority, the General Assembly, does not produce obligations: resolution 79/62 passed with 166 votes in favour and 3 against, and it does not mandate treaty negotiations ^[525]Killer Robots: UN Vote Should Spur Treaty NegotiationsHuman Rights Watch · 2024 · reportView source ↗Accessed on 9 September 2026.

The Geneva session of 31 August to 4 September 2026 illustrates it: there was convergence on a characterisation and on principles, and the final recommendation is that the Review Conference decide by consensus the modalities of future work ^[208]Report of the 2024-2025-2026 sessions of the Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (CCW/GGE.1/2026/CRP.1/Rev.1)Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems · 2026 · official documentView source ↗Accessed on 9 September 2026. Reuters reported from Geneva that the United States and Russia proposed last-minute changes and deletions and that Washington prefers guidelines to a binding treaty ^[903]Opposition by US and Russia raises doubts over autonomous weapons talks outcome, diplomats sayLe Poidevin, Olivia · 2026 · pressView source ↗Accessed on 9 September 2026. Meanwhile the programmes run on: in July 2025 the Department of Defense awarded contracts worth up to 200 million dollars to four frontier labsFrontier AIThe most advanced AI systems in existence at a given time, the ones pushing the limit of what the technology can do. A handful of companies with enormous resources build them.For exampleLike Formula 1 cars: there are few of them, they are extremely expensive and only a few teams build them, but what gets tested there ends up in everyone's car. ^[290]Pentagon-Anthropic Dispute over Autonomous Weapon Systems: Potential Issues for CongressSayler, Kelley M. · 2026 · official documentView source ↗archived copy onlyAccessed on 9 September 2026.

What this does not demonstrate. “Race” describes the structure of incentives, not a measurement: there is no public study comparing testing margins before and after, or civilian casualties with and without autonomy in target selection. Human Rights Watch, which campaigns for the treaty and is therefore an interested party, reports that the final version removed references to design, to ethical considerations and to predictability and traceability ^[526]UN Talks on Killer Robots Ends with Calls for Negotiations GrowingHuman Rights Watch · 2026 · reportView source ↗Accessed on 9 September 2026; the document adopted on 5 September had still not been published as of the date of this review ^[1073]Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons — Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (2026)United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs · 2026 · webView source ↗Accessed on 9 September 2026, so that weakening cannot be checked.