In the fourth year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s war has become a crucible for the technologies of the 21st century. Among the most transformative—yet controversial—tools now emerging on the front lines are battlefield AI systems, particularly those designed to autonomously detect, identify, track, and, in some cases, kill enemy targets. Often dubbed “hunter-killer algorithms,” these systems are rapidly reshaping the nature of combat and raising profound ethical questions about the
  • perestroika@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1·
    1 hour ago

    Sadly, I’m not surprised.

    Both sides have been clearly working on enhanced autonomy for a while now.

    At first, it seemed that autonomous targeting would soon remain the only option in face of electronic warfare taking down a majority of drones. (The spectacular footage we’ve seen so far has mostly originated from a small minority of drones that got through. This is changing with fiber optics, of course.)

    Then, tactical tricks (flying repeaters) and new guidance methods (fiber optic wire) gave direct guidance a fighting chance again, and somewhat postponed the need for high autonomy…

    …but soon enough, an average drone will be capable of much more processing than a super expensive cruise missile from the 1990-ties, and this kind of weapons can be highly autonomous. You can give them the approximate location of a target and tell them to look for something - a ship, a train, an aircraft, a bridge, and of course vehicles with protruding pipes.

    It will get nasty and complicated when they get cheap enough to target individual humans, because both common sense and international law insist that humans may be non-combatants and even combatants can surrender. A drone with enough mind to understand will be required to understand this, but there will be a motivation to cut corners. :(

  • funkajunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    131·
    1 day ago

    Ethical boundaries?

    Russia wanted this, now that they’ve “fucked around” it’s time to “find out”

    • lepinkainen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      I want loitering munitions with face detection, all targeting Putin, his oligarchs and their families.

    • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
      3·
      10 hours ago

      If ethical boundaries get thrown out in times of trouble, we don’t have ethical boundaries. It’s easy to not step over the line in times of peace.

    • foggenbooty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      91·
      1 day ago

      Yup. Look I don’t like the idea of drone/robot warfare, but Ukraine doesn’t have enough military support to win conventionally. As much as I wish allied countries would take the gloves off, they are still assisting minimally from afar so Ukraine has to get creative.

  • IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    1 day ago

    been saying it for months, AI was being developed for autonomous drones.

    next step is reports of a drone blowing the wrong target, it’ll be news when it “accidentally” targets civilians.

    • catty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      next step is reports of a drone blowing the wrong target, it’ll be news when it “accidentally” targets civilians.

      It probably won’t make news.