Activists take part in a campaign to ban killer robots during an action in Berlin, Germany, on March 21, 2019.
Credit: Wolfgang Kumm / Getty

Human rights advocates renewed their call for a preemptive ban on so-called “killer robots” on Monday as they accused the United States of being among a small number of countries working to halt progress on an international treaty to address the numerous concerns the weapons raise.

The accusation came a day before representatives from dozens of countries gather in Geneva to meet on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention.

The convention, according to the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, has yet to produce a treaty with teeth. Such a document would effectively ban lethal autonomous weapons systems, as they’re formally known, by requiring “meaningful human control over the use of force.”

“Lives will be taken based on algorithms” without that kind of safeguard, the campaign said in a tweet on Sunday.

The U.S. isn’t the only nation being singled out for being an outlier towards […]