Fully autonomous drones killed Russian soldiers during battlefield tests two years ago, according to a Ukrainian drone manufacturer. If true, the incident would represent another milestone in a war that has spurred unprecedented developments in military drones, robots and AI-guided weapons.
Oleksandr Kokhanovsky, CEO of Aero Center of Ukraine, a manufacturer of unmanned aircraft, informed about the one-time test. Interview with New Scientist At the press event organized by the Embassy of Ukraine in London. Kochanovsky described the test, which does not involve the Aero Center, his current company — using quadcopter drones pre-programmed to fly to the frontline before activating an AI-powered “Terminator Mode” that will seek out and attack any target in a given area.
Apparently, there was no video tape or anything showing what the Terminator drones were targeting and attacking. But Kokhanovskyy told New Scientist that human-manned drones sent to inspect the fallout found “several” dead Russian soldiers, leading to the conclusion that the fully autonomous drones killed them.
At an event at the Ukrainian embassy, representatives of defense companies said that the Ukrainian government prohibits the use of artificial intelligence in the final stage of target acquisition, according to New Scientist. Ukraine’s military commander also told New Scientist that its drone pilots only use semi-autonomous systems that allow humans to make critical control decisions. He described Ukraine’s commitment to “international humanitarian law” and emphasized that the military “always exercise great caution in making decisions to prevent civilian casualties.”
The one-off nature of this experiment makes sense given the practical limitations of this approach, along with considerations of international humanitarian law. Sending fully autonomous drones to attack anything and everything in a given area without the intervention of a human operator requires careful planning and carries the risk of so-called “friendly fire” incidents or attacks on civilian non-combatants. It is also unclear how effective these fully autonomous quadcopter drones are at selecting and attacking targets compared to human drone pilots.
