The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers.
Ukraine's digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, agrees that fully autonomous killer drones are "a logical and inevitable next step" in weapons development. He said Ukraine has been doing "a lot of R&D in this direction." "We have not crossed this line yet -- and I say 'yet' because I don't know what will happen in the future." said Honchar, whose group has spearheaded drone innovation in Ukraine, converting cheap commercial drones into lethal weapons.long-range Shahed-136 exploding drones
"The technology to achieve a fully autonomous mission with Switchblade pretty much exists today," said Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, its maker. That will require a policy change -- to remove the human from the decision-making loop -- that he estimates is three years away.Drones can already recognize targets such as armored vehicles using cataloged images.
The number of AI-endowed drones keeps growing. Israel has been exporting them for decades. Its radar-killing Harpy can hover over anti-aircraft radar for up to nine hours waiting for them to power up. AI is a priority for Russia. President Vladimir Putin said in 2017 that whoever dominates that technology will rule the world. In a Dec. 21 speech, he expressed confidence in the Russian arms industry's ability to embed AI in war machines, stressing that "the most effective weapons systems are those that operate quickly and practically in an automatic mode." Russian officials already claim their Lancet drone can operate with full autonomy.
An effort to lay international ground rules for military drones has so far been fruitless. Nine years of informal United Nations talks in Geneva made little headway, with major powers including the United States and Russia opposing a ban. The last session, in December, ended with no new round scheduled.
Scientists also worry about AI weapons being repurposed by terrorists. In one feared scenario, the U.S. military spends hundreds of millions writing code to power killer drones. Then it gets stolen and copied, effectively giving terrorists the same weapon.
We already have killer robots…. The fuck do you think their drones are? You’re writers aren’t even trying anymore. Y’all are basically fucking buzzfeed
Nazis with killer robots sounds like a horror movie.
Gee I wonder how a country like Ukraine gets the money and technology to develop something like that...DURING the 'war' nonetheless 🤔