First fully-autonomous drone kill Ukraine heralds ‘dystopian future of untethered weaponry’

“We cannot leave decisions on targets solely to AI; it would not be sufficiently responsible”, a Ukrainian commander said. The role of artificial intelligence in Russia’s war against Ukraine has long been debated. AI helps both armies map the frontline and subsequently analyse the satellite images collected. In some cases, it can handle tasks that previously required hundreds of people. It is also increasingly used in unmanned aircraft, especially in cooperation with human pilots during the final stage of an attack. There has now been a breakthrough on the Russian side — the New York Times reports that its forces have, for the first time in Ukraine, killed using a drone which selected its own target using artificial intelligence. The US newspaper, citing Ukrainian authorities and independent experts, described this as a historic milestone that could foreshadow “a dystopian future of weaponry untethered to humans”. Drone had no antenna but American module inside “It is a risk for the whole world,” Ukrainian colonel Serhiy Minaiev told the New York Times. He feared that within just a few years, we could be living in a world resembling the Terminator film. The attack took place in early July in Zaporizhzhia, southern Ukraine. According to experts interviewed by the NYT, Russian operators programmed a Molniya drone to fly towards a local petrol station. It then selected a precise target itself — apparently a propane tank. However, the drone crashed into a wall and the ensuing explosion killed three civilians, including a 19-year-old student. Ukrainian experts subsequently found a commercially available Nvidia Jetson Orin computer module in the wreckage of the destroyed drone. Crucially, it was not encrypted, allowing the Ukrainians to access its communications. Although Nvidia does not sell its modules in Russia, they can be purchased through intermediaries or via third countries. The same sophisticated modules, which cost at most a few hundred dollars, had previously been found in other drones and even in a new type of Russian S-71M Monochrome missile. Russia has been testing drones fitted with the Nvidia Jetson Orin module in Zaporizhzhia since May. The destroyed unmanned aircraft had no antenna through which it could communicate with its operators. Ukrainian Telegram channels reported as early as the beginning of July that similar antenna-less Molniya drones had been found in Zaporizhzhia.