The Era of Killer Robots Is Here

from The New York Times I'm Natalie. kitro and this is the. [Music]. daily outmanned and outgunned in what. has become a war of attrition against. Russia Ukraine has looked for any way to. overcome its vulnerabilities on the. battlefield that search has led to the. emergence of Killer. Robots today my colleague Paul Moser on. how ukra has become a Silicon Valley for.

autonomous weapons and how artificial. intelligence is reshaping Modern. [Music]. Warfare it's Tuesday July. 9th Paul when we've talked on the show. about the applications of advanced. artificial intelligence one of the scary.

ideas has been that militaries around. the world could use it to make. autonomous killing machines I.E Killer. Robots your reporting shows that this. may already be happening tell me about. it yeah so you know when I first got. started on my reporting you know I. thought this was the stuff of sci-fi. like you think about AI hunting and. killing somebody and you think of. Terminator and you know Arnold. Schwarzenegger hunting people as a robot. or you think of how in 2001 the Space.

Odyssey an all- knowing robot that can. kill people on a spaceship but the thing. is the early versions of this technology. that will get us there are already being. developed and they're being developed in. Ukraine and in some ways Ukraine has. become a Nexus for the development of. this type of autonomous military. technology RIT large they're taking. basically artificial intelligence and. finding all kinds of new military. applications for it why is Ukraine. become that Nexus so perhaps most.

importantly they're outgunned weapons. don't necessarily come quickly or. predictably from the United States or. Europe they have to reach to anything. they can use to fight this war and so. they turn to Consumer technology and. emerging Technologies like AI to build. new effective weapons the second point. is that they're outmanned and so as. you're facing the prospect of Defending. all these trenches and you just don't. have as many people as the Russians have. you need to come up with things that. solve that problem and and what better.

than something like an automated machine. gun or or a drone and then perhaps. something people don't realize is that. Ukraine has been a bit of a back office. for the global technology industry for a. long time many of the apps you use every. day were probably in some part coded by. engineers in Ukraine and so you have a. lot of coders and a lot of skilled. experts taking their abilities and. saying well now we need to turn from. building a dating app to figuring out. how to stop the Russians and and that. means building these new weapons and.

then finally extremely importantly this. is a war of attrition and so every day. there's fighting going on and that means. you have the ability to test these. weapons each day and you know to use the. Silicon Valley term iterate on them. tweak them and make them better and so. having what is effectively a sort of. laboratory to experiment and find out. ways to make AI ever more deadly really. helps yeah it sounds like you kind of. have all of these conditions that line. up to make Ukraine a perfect incubator.

to build this type of Technology I'm. wondering Paul what this actually looks. like on the ground what kind of weapons. are we talking about here yeah so I went. to Ukraine in May met with all kinds of. different Tech startups and developers. troops who use this technology and. perhaps the most startling Moment Like. wasn't near the front lines or anything. it was actually in a park just outside. of. Kiev and a couple guys in their 20s and. one in their teens who started this. company that makes autonomous drones.

pulled up on. motorcycles they take me to a field and. they unbox a tiny little drone four. rotors on it kind of a smaller version. of a typical drone you'd use to take. pictures of your vacation or something. like that maybe we can uh put uh the. screen like somewhere where be not so. much then they flip open this briefcase. with a screen on it and what they. explain they done is they took a tiny.

little mini circuit board a little mini. hobbyist computer here we have a. Raspberry Pi. plus CA but and put software on it that. allows that tiny drone to follow a tank. a piece of artillery or even a human and. eventually smash into it and so the idea. is if you have a shell on the bottom of. it it becomes something of a. missile I had heard of this before but I. hadn't seen it and so they said well you.

know we're going to show you and so the. CEO then flips on his motorcycle. helmet revs the engine a few times and. rips off down this dirt road as a. Target and one of the. teammates launches the Drone and it's. hovering above and then what you kind of. see is that he centers the crosshairs on. the. motorcycle and at that point the machine. takes over from the human.

and so the Drone starts sort of stalking. the motorcycle and it's getting closer. and closer and on the screen you can see. it you know it's lining up to swoop in. and his friends are crying. out go faster go faster you're screwed. oh my God you're done it's basically not. more than a couple of feet away from. him okay it was really close.

and they hit a button and turn off the. autonomy and the Drone flies back up. into the air and they're laughing and. it's a funny moment because they were. able to run down their CEO but the. darker reality of it is that if this was. an armed drone with a shell and they. hadn't hit that button at the end their. CEO would be a goner and this is the. technology that is already being used on. the Ukrainian front lines to hit Russian. targets it's kind of amazing what you're. seeing is the computer take over the. young startup guy and tracking down and.

targeting his CEO as he's swerving on. his motorcycle and that's why this. technology is so powerful right this is. not a remote control drone this is a. drone powered by artificial intelligence. that's making judgments on its own yeah. and I think what's important to realize. about these guys is you know they're not. doing something that miraculous what. they're doing is they're taking basic. code that is around combined it with. some new data from the war and made it.

into something entirely different which. is a weapon and what this automation. system adds to it is is one of the great. protections against these tiny types of. drones is Radio jamming and so if you. can break the signal between pilot and. drone you can stop that drone from. swooping in on your expensive weapon. system but what this does is it doesn't. matter what the pilot sees once they hit. that lock with the help of this AI. software it will keep going and so you. all of a sudden are completely helpless.

to stop it unless you shoot it out of. the sky it's kind of insane I mean we're. talking about basically autonomous. kamakazi drones tell me about the other. forms of AI that you saw yeah so if you. imagine that single kamakazi drone the. next step is to make a swarm of those. kamakazi drones and so there are a few. companies who are building swarms of. drones and so what they're testing now. is you have a single four rotor drone. that watches over the battlefield but. then it has its own little pack of.

kamakazi drones and it can choose a. Target and identify a Target and you. know it's constantly searching with its. camera and it sees a tank and it can. then dispatch one of those drones to go. in for a hit and one of the companies I. spoke to called swarmer recently tested. that technology and hit a Target 60. kilomet away wow so you know this is. again not a very expensive thing this is. hardware that costs thousands of dollars. and they're hitting weapon systems 60. kmet away with Incredible precision. another thing that is emerging is a sort.

of autonomous machine gun turret and so. what this uses is computer vision that. you know you would have on a lot of. surveillance cameras or even on your. iPhone uh you know your smartphone it. will sort of circle a human and identify. it so you take similar technology and. you put it on a machine gun and that. machine gun can then automatically see. targets as they move and then all it. takes is a human to press the trigger. and it's already sort of being tested. right now uh some of it's already you.

know achieving kills and taking out. targets Paul did you see the Automated. machine gun in action yeah I did and and. the story of it is actually fascinating. and it kind of indicates why Ukraine is. a place where these weapon systems are. emerging so we went to a range and met a. commander of a battalion called Da Vinci. wolves and da Vinci wolves are very well. known in Ukraine for their. experimentation with Weapons Systems and. the commander we met Alexander yab.

chanka you know really looks the part of. Ukrainian Community as this kasac. haircut and a bushy mustache and he was. very excited about the gun he actually. named his dog after the gun and the. reason he's so excited is because he. helped create parts of the gun he's. helped innovate it and you know unlike. the engineers that we were seeing in. keev he's a soldier so he's using this. technology on the front and he's sort of. the eyes for a lot of these companies. and he gives feedback to them about how. it's working and what they need and so. on and so he told me this amazing story.

he was fighting in bakut a city in. eastern Ukraine that the Russians were. trying very hard to take over and his. unit was tasked with defending the only. Road in and out of the city and they. kept having this problem which was that. their machine Gunners were just. constantly a target a machine gun is a. big heavy gun that can't easily be moved. you need to man it at all times so he. did what uh I think a lot of us do these. days he went online and tried to find a. solution and he ended ended up asking on.

Facebook if anybody had an idea and in. just a few months he had a working. prototype in his hands from a company. called roban ear and what the gun does. is it it uses cameras and what is. effectively a video game console a sort. of portable thing that looks like a. Nintendo switch and it can automatically. identify targets as they come over the. horizon or appear and then it kind of. automatically aims and all the soldier. has to do is press the button and shoot.

it sounds honestly quite terrifying uh. automated gun crowdsourced on Facebook. the whole thing sounds really outlandish. if I'm. honest yeah but it solved his unit's. problems he said it was great we could. sit back in the trench uh drink coffee. smoke cigarettes and shoot Russians and. it solved his problem using very basic. technology that's very powerful but that. lives in your smartphone and lives on. your video game systems and is pretty.

easily able to be created with. artificial. intelligence Paul you've said this. technology has been quite effective in. Ukraine but just to express a dose of my. skepticism here I I think many of us. interact with AI through chat GPT or. Gemini and we've seen the kind of. hilariously bad answers those systems. can produce like we can't even depend on.

AI to solve a crossword puzzle I'm just. wondering how can ukrainians rely on. this technology for much higher Stakes. stuff I mean hitting the right Targets. in war are they finding that their AI is. making. mistakes we don't really know the answer. to that we do know that the systems work. pretty well and part of the point is. that they're supposed to be cheap so. they don't always have to work if they. work 80% of the time and they're cheap.

that's okay I will say that another. reason why they want the human in the. loop who can turn off the AI is that. they're afraid of Friendly Fire and. hitting the wrong target there's an. ethical consideration but there's also. just a very practical one that this Tech. could go wrong and go at the wrong. person or identify the wrong thing and. they need to be able to turn it off so. there are still humans in the mix but. even with this bad technology perhaps. it's even scarier it's super simple to. just take the human out of the mix and.

how close are we to that I mean is. Ukraine's military contemplating a. scenario where the humans really go away. and the machines and their judgments are. entirely responsible for killing so that. was a question I oppos to everyone. working on this stuff and you know the. general answer is a no that the human. will stay in the loop for the. foreseeable future but people had. different takes on it and one guy who. had a particularly interesting answer. was an executive at the firm that made. that automative machine gun roers his.

name is Anton. skripnik and I met him at his offices in. Ukraine so you know realistically with. the pace that we're seeing when do you. think we're going to start seeing the. first automated kind of killing is it. nobody and when I asked him how or when. the first automated killing on the front. lines might occur uh maybe it was. already done uh most likely it was. already done you know he said it. probably honestly has already happened.

he had no way of knowing you know he. didn't he wasn't sure but people very. often just do something to survive to. complete a mission without like sharing. information and this is. like not bad you know in a fast-paced. high stress environment on the front. where life and death are are often times. a matter of an instant decision whether. or not a soldier flipped a switch that. allowed something to just sort of go. automated in this way or autonomous is.

very possible um is there any thought of. changing that or is that something that. you guys are S stand by um and so I. asked him okay but you guys aren't doing. this like there is no not a single. request about like having that said no. for us you have to hit this trigger. every time the gun sees a Target so that. it shoots how long would it take you to. do it if you wanted to and I said so. okay okay but if you wanted to make it.

fully autonomous how long would that. take tomorrow. tomorrow because today it's already like. yeah yeah I've taken two hours of your. time so so basically no time at all it's. a matter of a few lines of code because. these things are already effectively. doing the auto targeting it just has the. human pulling the trigger so to make the. computer pull the trigger is almost so. easy it's trivial wow so what Anton is. saying essentially is that he already. has the technology to create a robot.

that makes the decision to kill on its. own there's a human operator for now but. that's not a necessity exactly and you. know his answer really hit home for me. because I still I think even sitting. there had thought that this was the. stuff of Science Fiction but what I. realized at that moment is that you know. the era of the killer robot is already. upon us we're already. here and you know that raises just a. huge number of ethical and moral. questions about the future of warfare.

the future of accessibility to these. kinds of weapons and you know what it. requires to kill a human being in the. [Music]. future we'll be right. [Music]. back Paul you started to get into the. potential moral questions raised by a.

world where robots need no human input. at all to make decisions about killing. people let's talk about those questions. so I guess the first big consideration. is who has access to this and where it. will spread and you know the first group. that does is powerful countries right I. mean the United States is developing. swarms of drones that can accompany its. fighter jets other major military powers. in Europe and China for instance also. are developing this kind of thing but.

it's also not just those guys you know. Ukraine for instance has channels where. it's been sharing tips on drone Warfare. you know we did a story earlier in the. year out of Myanmar where we found. Burmese drone Pilots were training on. Ukrainian software that taught them to. use kamakazi drones and so the question. becomes how long until these sorts of. automated targeting softwares are shared. and perhaps what's maybe scarier is that. Russia also is developing very similar.

solutions to the ukrainians and so who. will they share it with will they share. it with North Korea Iran certain uh. fighters in Sudan so the point is it's. very easy to spread software I mean this. isn't even a piece of Hardware this is. just something that plugs into a piece. of Hardware you can send it over an. email and the guys that we talked to in. the field uh who are flying the drones. one of the problems they had with their. technology when they showed it to the. Ukrainian military is that it wasn't. encrypted so the ukrainians were afraid.

that if their drone crashed Behind Enemy. Lines without blowing up the Russians. could take the little mini computer. download the code and use it to build. their own system and hit the ukrainians. so software spreads incredibly fast and. Incredibly easily and it's going to be. extremely hard once these Solutions are. developed to stop them from going almost. anywhere it's not hard to imagine a dark. website that allows you to sell all. manner of autonomous drone attack. systems right there was one Us official. I was with who has huge concerns about.

the terrorism implications of this so I. mean it's not hard to imagine I mean. take a drone for example you know you. could fly something in from 20 30 miles. away and becomes extremely difficult to. defend against that raises a lot of. questions obviously and I have to assume. that ethicists and human rights. officials are asking some of them for. example is there any way to regulate AI. weapons can we put limits on their. use yeah so this is something that's.

been debated you know in the UN by. panels of experts for years but we never. really get to anything particularly. Concrete in part because countries are. already in an arms race to develop these. things and every time anybody proposes. some kind of a rule it's vetoed if not. by the United States by China by Russia. by other countries in Europe but there. are some basic principles that ethicists. sort of rally behind things like keeping. a human in the the loop so that the. human makes the ultimate decision even.

if there's automated targeting going on. and that's the sort of line the. ukrainians are standing behind but again. there's really not much out there to. stop any of this from going wherever it. wants to go and honestly it feels like. we're already heading in that. direction Paul in listening to you this. whole time I've been wondering how we. should think about this idea of software. making the decision about who lives and. dies because on the one hand I have to. say the idea of robots hunting down.

humans is truly frightening but on the. other hand it's not as if humans are. known for their restraint in War I mean. right now we're witnessing two Wars in. Ukraine and in Gaza where human-led. military campaigns have killed tens of. thousands of people many of them. civilians and so I'm wondering in your. reporting have you come to think of this. technology as in any way better or a. more precise form of.

warfare yeah so I think what was. interesting is some of the technologists. building this that I spoke with did make. this case and their logic goes something. like if we have robots fighting robots. humans aren't dying if we can put rules. inside the software no you know say. children will be killed by this weapon. we can prevent it from doing certain. things that maybe a really bad human. would do and you could maybe even create. spaces like the front line line where. just nobody can step foot you know for 4.

km on either side because the weapons. are so deadly and so how can you move. forward in either way and you just. create a perfect stalemate but I guess. history shows us in my understanding of. history at least that that's not the way. this will probably go and that every. time in the past we've seen a. breakthrough in Weaponry often times. it's just meant more devastating weapons. get created you know I thought back to. Alfred Nobel who famously. thought Dynamite would end war and of.

course it simply made more powerful. deadly bombs and it feels like that is. the kind of future that we are treading. into but I just think that it's very. hard to sit where we are you know in a. place that's not at War and tell people. building these things that are weapons. to defend their families and their. friends who are going off to war against. an Invader to stop doing it because it. could make us unsafe in the future and.

even some of the ethicists I spoke with. who are very opposed who have dedicated. their careers to fighting against. autonomous weapons they would throw up. their hands and say well I can't really. argue with the ukrainians one of the. ukrainians I spoke with who's making. autonomous drone systems said you show. me a hypothetical victim and I'll show. you a real dead soldier and you know a. family that now has to live without. him and that leaves you in a very hard.

place because you kind of have a what's. you know sort of a runaway train you. can't morally argue for people to stop. building things to defend themselves yet. what they're building basically secures. a future that will be far more dangerous. than the present that we live in and as. long as this war in Ukraine goes on we. are going to see more advanced systems. get. developed and I just don't know how we. avoid a future in which we have ever.

more powerful ever more autonomous. weapons and that's pretty. [Music]. scary Paul thank you so. much thank. [Music]. you on Monday Russia launched one of the. deadliest assaults on keev since the. first month of the war striking.

Ukraine's largest Children's Hospital as. part of a barrage of bombings across the. country at least 38 people were killed. in the attacks and more than 100 were. [Music]. [Music]. injured we'll be right.

back here's what else you should know. today the bottom line here is that we're. not going anywhere I am not going. anywhere I wouldn't be on Monday in a. move to save his candidacy President. Biden told Congressional Democrats in a. letter and on msnbc's Morning Joe that. he would not withdraw from the race and. accused those asking him to step aside. of being routinely wrong about politics. I don't care what big names things they.

were wrong in 2020 they're wrong in 2022. about the Red Wave they're wrong in. 2024 and go with come out with me watch. watch people react you make a judgment. Biden faces what could be the most. crucial week of his candidacy as he. contends with growing concern among. Democratic lawmakers about his age and. ability to win. reelection he also spoke directly to. some of his biggest fundraisers and. donors in a private call telling them.

Democrats needed to shift the focus away. from him and back to. Trump and as tropical storm Barrel. battered Houston and its suburbs on. Monday at least two people were killed. by Fallen trees and nearly 3 million. homes and businesses lost power in Texas. the storm is expected to move across the. eastern half of the United States over. the next several. [Music]. days today's episode was produced by. Will Reed Clare tennis gutter and Stella. tan it was edited by Lisa Chow contains.

original music by Dan Powell Alicia beup. and Sophia landman and was engineered by. Alyssa Moxley our theme music is by Jim. brunberg and Ben lansberg of wonderly. [Music]. [Music]. that's it for the daily I'm Natalie.

kitro see you tomorrow. [Music].