The Advancement of AI-Controlled Killer Drones: A Grave Threat to Humanity

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The world is witnessing a rapid advancement in the development and deployment of AI-controlled drones that can autonomously select and attack human targets, creating a grave threat to humanity and international security. Several countries are pursuing the deployment of these weapons, despite moral and legal concerns raised by critics. The Pentagon aims to deploy swarms of thousands of AI-enabled drones in the near future, while Ukraine has already used them in its conflict with Russia. The concept of autonomous weapons dates back to the 1800s, but the US began to expand on this concept in the 1970s when land mines were used in the Civil War.


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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. 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 US Air Force is developing AI-controlled drone swarms that are expected to be deployed in the next 5 years

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. 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 .

General Dynamics, a defense contractor, was awarded a $43 million contract in June 2020 to create a missile system with autonomous capabilities

The Pentagon aims to deploy swarms of thousands of AI-enabled drones, per a notice published earlier this year. 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 AI-technology used for the drones is learning various algorithms to improve targeting accuracy and agility

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.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. 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 United Nations has yet to adopt a binding resolution to limit the use of autonomous weapons

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 .

The use of autonomous weapons increases the risk of inaccuracy and potential mass-casualties

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 toward its intended target.


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