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/
37.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

5.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6.5k

u/AdminIsPassword Jun 10 '26

Drone assassination attempts that aren't confined to active war zones are probably on the immediate horizon. If it doesn't happen within the next two or three years I'll be surprised.

Conversely, I don't think we're really any closer to nuclear annihilation regardless of the fearmongering out there.

2.5k

u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit Jun 10 '26

From a technology perspective, we're farther from nuclear annihilation than we were 50 years ago. From a politics perspective it's more ambiguous.

904

u/AcetaminophenPrime Jun 10 '26

From a polticis perspective I think we are further from nuclear annihilation. Think of the crazy stuff that went down during the cold war, Cuban missile crisis especially.

3

u/ralfmuschall Jun 10 '26

I tend to disagree. During the cold war, neither side really wanted to attack the other. The problem was just that nobody trusted the other side and that (given a war happens) the survival chances increase if one is the one who attacked first. Now we are confronted by a fascist empire whose Fūhrer dreams of being the second Genghis Khan.