AI on the march: Are killer robots on the way?

DW (English)

Yesterday's science fiction is now reality—including in Germany's armed forces. Autonomous drones, transport robots and robotic dogs—more and more high tech is being deployed on the battle field.

Transcript

00:00 Robots can be friendly, they can entertain, and some can even act as caregivers.

00:10 And then there are the others, so-called killer robots, the kind we've only seen in Hollywood

00:15 movies that destroy and kill without human emotion.

00:20 Killer robots sound like something out of a science fiction movie.

00:25 The problem is that they're turning into reality.

00:27 They're not the Terminator robot, they're not sophisticated robots, they're the sorts

00:31 of drones that we're starting to see turning up on the battlefield in Ukraine.

00:36 And increasingly, it's not humans that are controlling those drones, but it's computers.

00:41 It's a simple technical matter to remove any humans from the control loop and replace them

00:46 by algorithms.

00:47 Tanks, soldiers and trenches.

00:48 That's how it looked in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, until artificial intelligence

00:56 began to be used on both sides, such as with the Bayraktar drones.

01:01 A single one costs over 11 million euros.

01:08 Then the legacy weapon systems of both the Ukrainians and the Russians, that is, those

01:14 systems previously not equipped with AI, were equipped with it.

01:19 And these systems changed the war.

01:22 On the Russian side, for example, there were glide bombs that are equipped with AI.

01:29 On the Ukrainian side, we see the equipment with AI, such as drones, or, and this is key,

01:37 the fact that Ukraine was able to be so effective and successful in the first few months has

01:43 to do with the fact that they had very good situational awareness.

01:48 Military conflicts are all about data and evaluating it.

01:51 Understanding speed is critical.

01:53 AI can achieve this and make tactical decisions.

01:59 With highly automated systems, we have to think carefully about how we organize the

02:03 division of labor between human and machine.

02:07 People have intentions, machines do not have intentions.

02:11 And we use these machines, these automated systems, as tools.

02:17 Can a drone become a humanoid killer robot, a Terminator?

02:23 A Terminator?

02:26 No, that's not possible.

02:29 We haven't reached that level of technology yet.

02:32 So we do see fascinating YouTube videos from Boston Dynamics, for example.

02:37 We can see that these are machines that have a high level of performance in the area of

02:41 motion control.

02:44 When they do a somersault or things like that, that doesn't make them dangerous killer robots,

02:49 though.

02:50 Last year, military spending worldwide rose to more than 2 trillion euros, a new record.

02:58 The US is in first place with almost 750 billion euros.

03:02 But China is also catching up.

03:05 Russia increased its military budget by around 9% in 2022.

03:12 If you have an army that works with AI, you have different tactics than one that works

03:16 without it.

03:19 That is, it's not about putting artificial intelligence into a weapon system.

03:23 It's about changing the whole system, training, tactics, organization.

03:29 And it could be that smaller countries that are more agile in terms of the composition

03:33 of their military, the cooperation between civil, military and industry, that they suddenly

03:39 have a head start in bringing data together.

03:47 Companies that develop robots for peaceful purposes are also working on autonomous weapon

03:51 systems and receive money from governments to do so.

03:56 Around 60 countries are working on such systems.

04:03 The technologies are going to exist.

04:04 They're going to be part of our lives.

04:05 We're going to have autonomous cars.

04:06 We're going to have autonomous trucks, autonomous buses.

04:09 There's going to be lots of AI in our lives.

04:11 And that technology could be repurposed, turned into autonomous weapons.

04:15 So we can't stop that happening because we want all those positive uses of AI in our

04:19 lives.

04:20 But we can at least stop arms companies openly developing and selling such weapons and making

04:25 them like the Kalashnikovs of today.

04:28 One possible solution?

04:29 Stricter regulations.

04:30 But this is controversial.

04:32 A few EU nations led by France are calling for extensive exemptions for some AI uses

04:37 in the military.

04:38 (electronic music)

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