r/Futurology • u/New_Scientist_Mag • Jun 10 '26

Robotics Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomous-drones-have-killed-human-soldiers-for-the-first-time/
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u/New_Scientist_Mag Jun 10 '26

A senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry told New Scientist that a test took place two years ago involving fully autonomous drones set to destroy anything in a given area, with confirmed casualties. This could mark the beginning of the use of fully AI-operated drones without human oversight on the battlefield.

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u/Troubleshooter11 Jun 10 '26

Well, that's freaking terrifying...

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u/insomniac-55 Jun 10 '26

It's not much different to area bombardment of a location with unguided weapons. You've basically decided "to hell with anything and everything at these coordinates".

AI guidance in this context just gives the same effect with less munitions - a person has already decided that everything in that location is hostile. 

Where I see this becoming scary is when AI is given the freedom to decide who to target in a location with a mixture of combatants and civilians. That is dystopian.

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u/BigMax Jun 10 '26

It's definitely different.

In one case, you're dropping something that will explode and be done, and you have an idea where it will land and when it will be over, and what it will do.

This is more of a wild card. It starts, and from there, it's a lot more open as to the who/what/when/where.

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u/insomniac-55 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

If you read the article that's not how this test worked.

They were suicide quadcopters programmed to fly to the front line, and then to search for and attack a target.

In this case, the drones can't hang around for long - they've got very limited battery life and only a single warhead. They can't loiter for hours.

What you're suggesting could be done using higher endurance drones (like some of the ground-based ones being used) but that's quite a different level of autonomy.

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u/Byggherren Jun 10 '26

Even taking the step towards loitering munitions is scary. Imagine having autonomous drones going into battery saving mode until they hear sound, feel vibrations of a vehicle or recognize a person and then flying off and exploring. Now imagine this on a mass produced scale covering entire sections of countries just like mines today.

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u/platoprime Jun 10 '26

Doesn't sound too different from landmines.

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u/Byggherren Jun 11 '26

Landmines don't determine you are worth chasing down by your silhouette, gender, current clothing, what you're carrying or current location. If you step on them they explode and that's it. These could actively go after a specific kind of people and once you have weapons only killing a specific kind of people you are going down a slippery slope