Zelensky says AI will soon ‘decide what happens on the battlefield’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could be used in war to “decide what happens on the battlefield.”

“As early as next year, there is already a real possibility that AI –– not only people –– will begin to decide what happens on the battlefield,” Zelensky said in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. “And we need peace before we reach that point.”

Zelensky warned that some “AI believers” say “one day AI will move from the digital world to shaping atoms.”

“And when that happens, we had better be at peace,” Zelensky said. “We certainly need to end the wars that already exist. Ukraine deserves security, just as all of you do, every country and every nation.”

The New York Times reported in August that a Russian drone used to kill three Ukrainians in the city of Zaporizhzhia carried onboard minicomputers sold commercially by Nvidia to make targeting decisions, experts and military officials told the outlet.

“This is a risk for the whole world. In a few years, we will be living in a ‘Terminator’ movie. It’s no joke. Machines are making decisions to strike,” Zaporizhzhia’s air defense commander Col. Serhiy Minaiev told the Times. In the “Terminator” films, AI described as “Skynet” deems humanity a threat, prompting its near-total extermination.

Russia and Ukraine already used AI in several different drone models before fully autonomous drones, absent any human controller or pilot, became a reality, the Times wrote.

Concerns over AI’s advancement ballooned in recent weeks after a former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher warned that the technology could eradicate humanity by the end of the decade.

The statement caused lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to sound the alarm , but President Trump called the concern a “hoax,” dismissed notions of slowing down development and said he would launch an “AI Force” and an “AI czar” to oversee development. Trump warned a slow-down would allow China to catch up to the U.S. in AI development.

The president told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that the U.S. will officially rename AI to “ super intelligence .”

“The use of the word artificial makes intelligence sound fake,” he said. “It is not fake. It’s actually amazing. But we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports … In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence — SI. Let’s see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better, and it’s much more accurate.”