Battlefield weapons continue to edge towards the use of AI as controllers, since autonomous weapons may be necessary given how the recent rash of improvised drone weapons are being countered. Christian Borys comments on costs and defenses in NewScientist (1 July 2017, paywall):
Islamic State (ISIS) has deployed consumer drones carrying grenades in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, creating the most daunting problem US Special Operations Command troops faced in Iraq during 2016, according to their commander Raymond Thomas.
Groups around the world are taking advantage of the increasing accessibility of drone technology to build and deploy them as weapons (see “Home-grown drones“). And it’s not hard to imagine them being used in an attack in the West; the bomber responsible for the May attack on a concert in Manchester used parts purchased locally and may have been trained in Libya. …
And now, according to Thomas ISIS is using drones in an “almost swarm level capability” – deploying multiple fliers to the battlefield that can act and move as one. …
On the battlefield, even basic drones are proving to be such a problem that militaries are going to absurd lengths to shoot them down. In March, the BBC reported that a US ally had used a $3 million “Patriot” missile to shoot down a $200 quadcopter drone.
That’s why the hunt is on for an alternative take-down method. One possibility is the Drone Defender produced by Battelle, a military contractor based in Ohio.
The device has a range of 400 metres and looks like a rifle with a radio mast for a barrel. It was first spotted on the battlefield in Iraq in 2016. It operates by shooting a directed radio pulse, disabling the operator’s control of the drone or disrupting its link to GPS satellites, causing it to fall out of the sky.
Which points to the attraction of building an autonomous weapon. The more it can operate on its own, the more attractive it’ll be to militaries around the world – and the closer to an AI it must become, with the attendant uncertainty which I believe will accompany such a development.
A dismal future.
