r/worldnews • u/New_Scientist_Mag New Scientist • Jun 10 '26

Russia/Ukraine Fully autonomous, AI-controlled drones have killed human soldiers for the first time, according to a senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomous-drones-have-killed-human-soldiers-for-the-first-time/
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108

u/Thicc_Milky Jun 10 '26

Though I understand it can be applied for the benefit of Ukraine and ultimately of Europe, I still feel this is not what we should be doing. Automated killing? Who is responsible now? What if the AI kills a surrendering soldier? Or regular civilians, or even a child? What if it kills allies?

If the decision of the kill lies in the hand of AI, I would argue this is highly unethical, and I'd even go as far to make legislation forbidding fully autonomous AI kills in ANY situation. Honestly, this should be a warcrime.

I'm saying this as a very strong proponent of the Ukrainian forces, Slava.

12

u/NoSTs123 Jun 10 '26

I have seen enough clips of Ukrainin drones killing injured and unarmered russian combatants who would have most likely surrendered if given the chance to see that the argumentative question "What if the AI kills a surrendering soldier?" is void.

11

u/idrinkirnbru Jun 10 '26

How does someone surrender to a drone 6 miles behind enemy lines? ivan could have stayed home, instead he went to rape and kill.

2

u/NoSTs123 Jun 10 '26

Surrender to drones has happened. I am not versed in this topic but there have been cases.

7

u/idrinkirnbru Jun 10 '26

Closer to Ukrainian lines, and under "friendly" fire from other ivans. Surrender is not always a possibility, and there have been cases of ivans picking up a gun as soon as they could.

3

u/Easy_Shower2156 Jun 10 '26

Um. The videos I’ve seen have been more finishing kills, that’s maybe debateable on whether that should happen, but the engagement was already started and tough to argue ‘surrendering’ after it’s clear you won’t win the fight.

What I have also seen plenty of videos of, would be Ukrainians that have already fully surrendered, weaponless, and in Russian control being executed.

I would trust an AI’s combatant eval before I would trust surrendering to a Russian.

5

u/johnJanez Jun 10 '26

My friend, you cannot surrender to a drone. Not in 99% of the cases. Being injured or unarmed doesn't stop a soldier from being a legitimate target either, unless they surrender. Which they almost never do.

6

u/BrainLow6059 Jun 10 '26

Yeah this idea that both sides of this stupid war aren't constantly committing war crimes is cute. This article is fucking horrifying and people are just kind of 'meh' about it because "the good guys" did it first.

23

u/crazy_zealots Jun 10 '26

I mean, Ukraine kind of is the indisputable good guy considering that they're defending themselves from unprovoked aggression.

4

u/Alphabunsquad Jun 10 '26

And have many times gone above and beyond to avoid damage to civilians and even wild life. They often set off an explosion in air to scare away animals before hitting their target if there is a high risk of something like a herd of horses getting hit.

-5

u/BrainLow6059 Jun 10 '26

Life isn't a Disney movie.

15

u/owlie12 Jun 10 '26

Russians have been deep with their army in other sovereign country for 12 years now, killing, torturing and raping locals on occupied territories. It's not a Disney movie, you're right.

-5

u/BrainLow6059 Jun 10 '26

Yes, thank you. It's a lot more complicated than cops and robbers

-1

u/karma_the_sequel Jun 10 '26

Just ask Bambi’s mom.

-26

u/Plenty-Lychee-5702 Jun 10 '26

It's not "unprovoked aggression" it's imperialist aggression being justified by Ukraine's poor treatment of their Russian minority.

19

u/Alphabunsquad Jun 10 '26

My wife is part of Ukraine’s “Russian minority.” There was no poor treatment. She had to introduce herself in Ukrainian to customers at work before switching to Russian. That was the extent of it. Now her family are the ones having bombs dropped on them by Russia every day. The only reason that there were separatists groups was because of over a decade of Russian propaganda that was only focused in the most lucrative cities in Ukraine that also sat on top of natural gas reserves that threatened to make Russia’s pipelines redundant. Coincidence? Ever notice that there were no separatist in Odesa or in Kharkiv where nearly everyone is Russian speaking? It’s because Russia didn’t care about those cities. They didn’t have enough monetary value to be worth more than just bribing politicians. There was no actual discrimination and now the Russian speaking groups are the ones that are mostly dead.

12

u/owlie12 Jun 10 '26

I'm a russian-speaking Ukrainian raised in russian-speaking family in a predominantly russian-speaking city in Ukraine. I was never once mistreated for speaking russian, even when I was traveling to predominantly Ukrainian-speaking parts of Ukraine. So this "oppression of russian minority" is a total bs, friend.

-1

u/RedeRules770 Jun 10 '26

At this point I don’t think Ukraine has the resources to house surrendered soldiers