The Real AI Weapons Are Drones, Not Nukes

Hollywood imagined that computers would launch a nuclear missile, but self-guided aircraft are what’s truly changing the nature of combat.  
War is a fearsome accelerant of arms races. Before Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, the ethics of using land mines and cluster munitions were the subject of heated debate, and many states had signed agreements not to use either. But once the desperate need to win takes over, governments can lose their qualms and embrace once-controversial technologies with gusto. For that same reason, the war between Russia and Ukraine has banished any misgivings either country might have had about military use of artificial intelligence. Each side is deploying millions of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, to conduct surveillance and attack enemy positions—and relying heavily on AI to direct their actions. Some of these drones come from small, simple kits that can be bought from civilian manufacturers; others are more advanced attack weapons. The latter category includes Iranian-built Shaheds, which the Russians have been using in great numbers during an offensive against Ukraine this winter. And the more drones a nation’s military deploys, the more human operators will struggle to oversee all of them.

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