Cardinal Bo urges lawmakers to reject the ‘automated slaughter’ of autonomous weapons

Cardinal Charles Maung Bo has called on Christian legislators from around the world to “reject automated warfare” and support strong limits that keep the technology of artificial intelligence under human control.

“As representatives of the people, your mandate is clear: You must champion an immediate, binding international ban on fully autonomous lethal weapons,” the cardinal and archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar, said in Assisi, Italy, on Aug. 24.

“To automate the battlefield is to lower the moral threshold for violence, stripping conflict of human conscience and turning our sons, daughters, and citizens into bloodless data points,” he added.

Bo addressed lawmakers during a one-day peace summit organized by the International Catholic Legislators Network (ICLN) on Aug. 24. The summit immediately followed the group’s annual meeting in Rome Aug. 20–23, which included a private audience with Pope Leo XIV.

Bo — whose country has been suffering for years under unrelenting violence, economic collapse, and dramatic humanitarian concerns — gave a strong warning about AI’s “potential to amplify human conflicts and malice.”

“Human conflicts alone resulted in the deaths of 135 million…