So, what exactly are these slaughterbots? Picture drones on steroids. They're autonomous robots fueled by artificial intelligence, predominantly employed in warfare. What's truly bone-chilling about these mechanized killers is their capability to eliminate targets with unnerving autonomy.
From The Daily Star:
What are killer robots, exactly? In formal parlance they are called Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). Also known as slaughterbots, they use AI to identify, select, and eliminate targets without human intervention. Conventional unmanned military drones can fire only when a remote human operator decides to do so. But a slaughterbot can independently engage a target.
Human controlled drones have been used in warfare for years. But, combined with readily available image-recognition and autopilot software, they have turned into killer robots. In a depressing show of machines' superiority over humans, such robots took to the skies in Libya and hunted down adversaries like eagles swooping down on helpless chickens.
In March 2020, when soldiers loyal to the Libyan strongman Khalifa Hafter were retreating, dozens of small ordinary looking drones, Turkish made STM Kargu-2, came buzzing down from the sky, using cameras to scan the terrain and onboard computers to identify a target. Then they "decided" to attack, divebombing trucks and individual soldiers, exploding on contact, massacring the ragtag remains of Haftar's men.
Turkey used such AI-powered drones to patrol its border with Syria and help Azerbaijan in the war with Armenia. Often called "loitering munitions", these weapons autonomously patrolled an area for enemy movements and divebombed when they wanted to, killing men and destroying military hardware as they exploded on impact with the targets.
These killer robots are programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition. This marks the third time in human history that the nature of warfare has undergone a fundamental transformation. First, there was gunpowder. Then came nuclear arms. Now we are witnessing the LAWS, observed Kai-Fu Lee, influential Taiwanese computer scientist and writer. They come with lethal AI-powered autonomy and can search for, decide to engage, and obliterate a life, with no human involvement at all. It's no wonder that in most of today's wars, LAWS are carrying out reconnaissance, identification, engagement, and destruction.
