Faith advocates tell Congress AI shouldn’t be allowed to kill without human intervention

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Monday, April 20, 2026

Citing the increasing use of artificial intelligence tools in the military, a coalition of leaders from several multifaith organizations urged Congress on Friday to take steps to prevent the use of AI-powered autonomous weapons from being used for killing without human intervention.

The coalition of 20 faith leaders raised their concerns in a letter to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, published by Americans for Responsible Innovation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy advocacy in the public interest.

“We write to you as shepherds of our communities, as people of faith who believe that the sanctity of human life is a sacred obligation,” the faith leaders stated.

“As AI tools are increasingly used in a military context, we urge Congress to establish legal boundaries governing when and how the Pentagon may deploy AI-powered autonomous weapons, ensuring that the men and women of our Armed Forces are always entrusted to make the final decision on when to take a life.”

Last month, Gerald Mako, a research affiliate at the Cambridge Central Asia Forum at Cambridge University, explained in a report published by The Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare at the West Point Military Academy in New York, that autonomous weapons systems have created a problem for international humanitarian law.

Mako explained that the legality of autonomous weapons under international humanitarian law depends on their compliance with the core principles of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Additional Protocol I, which cover distinction, proportionality, precaution, and the Martens Clause.

“But once AI enters the picture, these long-standing rules run into a level of complexity they were never designed to handle, creating an entirely new set of accountability challenges,” Mako explained.

“Once a machine rather than a human exercises the judgment traditionally required to distinguish civilian from combatant, or to weigh collateral damage against military advantage, or to cancel an attack when circumstances change, the foundational assumptions of IHL are thrown into question.”

The faith leaders highlighted this challenge in their letter to Congress and insisted that AI-controlled weapons aren’t fit for warfare.

“Recent controversy over the military's use and acquisition of AI models has revealed a disturbing reality: although these systems are increasingly used in military operations, there are currently no rules that guarantee human monitoring of autonomous weapon systems,” the group argued.

“Every great faith tradition teaches us that the taking of a life is a grave and solemn act. As a matter of conscience, we believe that such a decision must never be delegated to a machine.”

 AI-driven autonomous weapons systems usually fall into three distinct categories: semi-autonomous systems, supervised autonomy, and fully autonomous systems. Operators control semi-autonomous systems while AI handles navigation or target suggestions.  Operators can override supervised autonomous weapons at any time, while fully autonomous weapons follow “pre-programmed rules and AI to adapt to changing situations and can find and engage targets on their own,” according to Mako.

Loitering munitions like the Israeli Harop and Turkish Kargu-2 , which are a hybrid weapon system combining drone surveillance with missile-like precision strike capabilities, do not fall neatly into these categories. According to Mako, they blur the lines between supervised (or semi-autonomous) operation and full autonomy.

“Most of these technologies have already been used in conflicts, as drones have been deployed in Pakistan, Azerbaijan, or in Ukraine. Drone swarms will go even further as fleets are programmed to self-coordinate, overwhelming defenses and dynamically adjusting formations without direct human input,” he explained.

The multifaith group argued that the U.S. currently has no comprehensive federal law limiting the use of AI-enabled autonomous weapons without human oversight, and current policy documents guiding their use can be circumvented.

While the DoD does have a directive that "Establishes policy and assigns responsibilities for developing and using autonomous and semiautonomous functions in weapon systems" and "guidelines designed to minimize ... unintended engagements," some claim that it's insufficient. 

“Today's AI is not ready to make life-or-death decisions. We speak out of respect for human dignity rather than out of fear of technology. AI systems are devoid of the humanity that allows each of us to comprehend the world in which we exist,” the faith group warned.

“They falter in unfamiliar circumstances. And they cannot grasp, in any meaningful sense, the moral and spiritual gravity of ending a human life. Every person who may be in the crosshairs of such a weapon is someone's parent, child, neighbor, and loved one,” they added.  “Machines do not comprehend that truth. There are serious moral repercussions from misidentifying a target, striking at the wrong time, or misinterpreting a scenario.”