Nov 24, 2023

The US is reportedly developing a network of hundreds or even thousands of AI-enhanced, autonomous drones that could be rapidly deployed near enemy regions. By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Policies You may unsubscribe at any time. The world is witnessing a rapid advancement in the development and deployment of AI-controlled drones that can autonomously select and attack human targets, according to a report by The New York Times . Autonomous killer drones These weapons, also known as lethal autonomous weapons or "killer robots," are being pursued by several countries, including the US, China, and Israel, despite the ethical and legal concerns raised by critics, who warn that such weapons could pose a grave threat to humanity and international security. The Times reported that many governments, such as Austria, are urging the UN to adopt a binding resolution that would ban or limit the use of AI killer drones. Still, they are facing opposition from a group of nations, including the US, Russia, Australia, and Israel, who prefer a non-binding resolution. See Also Austria's chief negotiator on the issue, Alexander Kmentt, said that this was one of humanity's most significant inflection points and questioned the role of human beings in using force, which he said was a fundamental security, legal, and ethical issue. The Pentagon aims to deploy swarms of thousands of AI-enabled drones, per a notice published earlier this year. The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and the Threat Systems Management Office operate a swarm of 40 drones to test the rotational units capabilities during the battle of Razish, National Training Center on May 8th, 2019. Reuters reported that US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, said in a speech in August that AI-controlled drone swarms would help the US counter the numerical advantage of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) in weapons and personnel. She said that the US would use its mass of drones, which would be harder for the PLA to plan for, hit, or beat. The Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, said that AI drones would have to be able to make lethal decisions under human supervision and argued that this would be the difference between winning and losing. He said that he did not think that the adversaries of the US would refrain from making individual decisions and that it would give them a huge advantage if the US imposed that limitation on itself. Ukraine had already used AI-controlled drones in its conflict with Russia, but it was unclear if they had caused any human casualties. Autonomous weapons are not new The concept of autonomous weapons is not new. It dates back to at least the 1800s, when land mines, which are designed to discharge automatically when a person or object passes on top of them, were used during the Civil War in the United States. The US began to expand on this concept in the late 1970s with a weapon known as the Captor Anti-Submarine Mine, which could be dropped from an airplane or a ship and settle on the bottom of the ocean, waiting for an enemy target to trigger its sensors and explode. In the 1980s, the US Navy started to rely on the AEGIS weapon system, which uses a high-powered radar system to search for and track any incoming enemy missiles. It can be set on automatic mode to fire off defensive missiles before a human intervenes. Another step in the progression toward more sophisticated autonomous weapons came in the form of homing munitions, such as the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, which has a radar seeker that refines the trajectory of a fired missile as it tries to destroy enemy planes. Homing munitions generally cannot be recalled after they are fired and act like an attack dog sent by police to run down a suspect, according to Paul Scharre, a former senior Pentagon official and author of the book "Army of None." He said they have a certain degree of autonomy in refining their path, but he defined it as limited autonomy. Harpoon anti-ship missiles operate similarly, with limited autonomy. A more recent form of automated weaponry is the loitering munition, which can stay in the air for a long time, searching for a specific target type and then attacking it. These devices were introduced by an Israeli military contractor in 1989 under the name of Harpy. This drone can search over hundreds of miles for enemy radar systems and then attack them. Various American military contractors, including AeroVironment based in California, have sold comparable hovering weapons that are equipped with an explosive warhead. Known as the Switchblade 600, the weapon flies above until it locates a tank or other objective and then releases an anti-armor warhead. Human sign-off is still requested before the weapon strikes the target, but taking the human out of the loop would be relatively simple, making the device entirely autonomous. AeroVironment’s Switchblade 600 As per the Times report, Wahid Nawabi, chairman of AeroVironment, said that the technology exists today and that one could tell the device to find a Russian T-72 tank without further communication. It takes it out if it has more than 80 percent confidence that it has found one. He said that the entire end-to-end mission could be autonomous except for firing it to begin with. The Pentagon is reportedly developing a network of hundreds or even thousands of AI-enhanced, autonomous drones that could be rapidly deployed near China in the event of conflict. These drones would carry surveillance equipment or weapons and would be used to take out or weaken China's extensive network of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems along its coasts and artificial islands in the South China Sea. This development could potentially be a major shift in military strategy. That is just one blitz of efforts at the Pentagon aiming to deploy thousands of inexpensive, autonomous, and, at times, lethal drones in the next year or two that can continue operating even when GPS signals and communications are jammed. Some military contractors, including executives at Palantir Technologies, a major artificial intelligence military contractor, had argued that entirely autonomous AI-controlled lethal attacks could still be years away, as the most advanced algorithms are not yet reliable enough, and so cannot be trusted to make life or death decisions autonomously, and may not be for some time.