Autonomous Systems Wage War

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Drones are becoming the deadliest weapons in today’s war zones, and they’re not just following orders. Should AI decide who lives or dies?

 

The fear: AI-assisted weapons increasingly do more than help with navigation and targeting. Weaponized drones are making decisions about what and when to strike. The millions of fliers deployed by Ukraine and Russia are responsible for up to 70 to 80 percent of casualties, commanders say, and they’re beginning to operate with greater degrees of autonomy. This facet of the AI arms race is accelerating too quickly for policy, diplomacy, and human judgement to keep up.

 

Horror stories: Spurred by Russian aggression, Ukraine’s innovations in land, air, and sea drones have made the technology so cheap and powerful that $500 autonomous vehicles can take out $5 million rocket launchers. “We are inventing a new way of war,” said Valeriy Borovyk, founder of First Contact, part of a vanguard of Ukrainian startups that are bringing creative destruction to the military industrial complex. “Any country can do what we are doing to a bigger country. Any country!” he told The New Yorker. Naturally, Russia has responded by building its own drone fleet, attacking towns and damaging infrastructure.

• On June 1, Ukraine launched Operation Spiderweb, an attack on dozens of Russian bombers using 117 drones that it had smuggled into the country. When the drones lost contact with pilots, AI took over the flight plans and detonated at their targets, agents with Ukraine’s security service said. The drones destroyed at least 13 planes that were worth $7 billion by Ukraine’s estimate.
• Ukraine regularly targets Russian soldiers and equipment with small swarms of drones that automatically coordinate with each other under the direction of a single human pilot and can attack autonomously. Human operators make decisions about use of lethal force in advance. “You set the target and they do the rest,” a Ukrainian officer said.
• In a wartime first, in June, Russian troops surrendered to a wheeled drone that carried 138 pounds of explosives. Video from drones flying above captured images of soldiers holding cardboard signs of capitulation, The Washington Post reported. “For me, the best result is not that we took POWs but that we didn’t lose a single infantryman,” the mission’s commander commented.
• Ukraine’s Magura V7 speedboat carries anti-aircraft missiles and can linger at sea for days before ambushing aircraft. In May, the 23-foot vessel, controlled by human pilots, downed two Russian Su-30 warplanes.
• Russia has stepped up its drone production as part of a strategy to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses by saturating the skies nightly with low-cost drones. In April, President Vladimir Putin said the country had produced 1.5 million drones in the past year, but many more were needed, Reuters reported.

How scared should you be: The success of drones and semi-autonomous weapons in Ukraine and the Middle East is rapidly changing the nature of warfare. China showcased AI-powered drones alongside the usual heavy weaponry at its September military parade, while a U.S. plan to deploy thousands of inexpensive drones so far has fallen short of expectations. However, their low cost and versatility increases the odds they’ll end up in the hands of terrorists and other non-state actors. Moreover, the rapid deployment of increasingly autonomous arsenals raises concerns about ethics and accountability. “The use of autonomous weapons systems will not be limited to war, but will extend to law enforcement operations, border control, and other circumstances,” Bonnie Docherty, director of Harvard’s Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative, said in April.

 

Facing the fear: Autonomous lethal weapons are here and show no sign of yielding to calls for an international ban. While the prospect is terrifying, new weapons often lead to new treaties, and carefully designed autonomous weapons may reduce civilian casualties. The United States has updated its policies, requiring that autonomous systems “allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force” (although the definition of appropriate is not clear). Meanwhile, Ukraine shows drones’ potential as a deterrent. Even the most belligerent countries are less likely to go to war if smaller nations can mount a dangerous defense.