Lethal drones in Ukraine show what's coming
This week marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the first year of which is covered well in Yaroslav Trofimov’s book Our Enemies Will Vanish. I wrote about Ukraine, and Trofimov’s book, in a column last October, beginning with this line:
The war in Ukraine deserves more attention.
This is still true on the third anniversary of the war: a democracy is being overrun by the invasion, and attendant war crimes, of an authoritarian dictator. We ignore this conflict at our peril. Whether it’s lethal technology or lethal politics, what starts on the battlefield tends to spread.
One reason tiny Ukraine is still standing at all after three years is due to its use of drones: surveilling, targeting, and attacking enemy positions. Many drones in the conflict are now designed and made in Ukraine. Russia uses drones, too, attacking ambulances, hospitals, and just two weeks ago, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (source), setting fire to the sarcophagus containing radioactive material.
Drones are the defining technology of this conflict. At any given moment, Yaroslav Trofimov told me, thousands of drones are hovering over the battlefields in Ukraine.
Battlefield tech, as I said, tends to spread. And that means drones are headed your way.
There’s a new documentary out called Flash Wars: Autonomous Weapons, A.I. and the Future of Warfare, directed by Vienna, Austria-based Daniel Wunderer. I spoke with Wunderer on this week’s Techtonic (stream the show, download the podcast, see episode links). As the film’s subtitle suggests, Wunderer sees the future of war increasingly defined by autonomous weapons. These are drones that use AI to navigate to an area, identify a target, and carry out a lethal strike – all without a human in the loop. Anyone who has watched AI systems make mistake after mistake after mistake, as Gary Marcus has, will understand the danger of this idea.
Flash Wars shows entrepreneurs and defense contractors excitedly talking about the new weapons systems. One contractor acknowledges that, yes, it can be scary to be hurtling into a future of AI-driven killing machines, but we just need to “accept more risk.”
Standing apart from these voices is AJung Moon, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who has spent her career advocating for ethical guardrails in robotics. I consider her to be the hero of the film. Wunderer told me in our interview that Moon is not alone: he met roboticists at several companies who want their creations to be used for good – rescue missions and the like – rather than having a gun strapped onto them. But the odds are against any such restrictions.
“We’re going to invest in autonomous killer robots,” said an unnamed defense official, quoted in this Defense One article on Feb 20. Without any meaningful regulation or pushback, the Pentagon and its defense contractors seem to be moving fast to bring about a future bristling with lethal autonomous weapons systems (commonly referred to by the acronym LAWS).
It’s not just the military: police departments, such as the NYPD here in New York, often adopt these weapons systems, albeit on a smaller scale. Such was the case with the “Robodog,” a nightmarish four-legged robot reminiscent of that one Black Mirror episode. Flash Wars recounts the public backlash that occurred when New Yorkers saw the police robodog prancing down their street. (It’s not the first military tech in the NYPD recently: see this Hell Gate piece on the comically ineffective weeble-shaped Knightscope surveillance robot.)
We always hear assurances that such robots would never have weapons attached to them, but as far back as 2023 Gizmodo covered a robodog outfitted with a flamethrower. Many startups are now using Chinese robodogs, which make it easier to bolt on machine-gun attachments. Flash Wars covers all of this: the militarization of police department tech, public pledges by robotics companies not to make lethal robots, and the market’s weaponization of those same robots.
(Image of robodog with flamethrower attached on top. Flames are shooting out.)
It’s a little depressing, seeing the speed at which the lethal autonomous tech is proliferating, even as clear voices like Professor Moon are warning us about the disasters that await.
Whatever chance we have at positive change, though, begins with awareness. Hence this newsletter, and Techtonic, and (I’d guess) Wunderer’s intent in making Flash Wars. People need to know what we’re up against.
The very worst thing that we can do is deny the reality of what’s happening. And that, unfortunately, brings me back to the war in Ukraine, the conflict spawning the drones and AI weapons systems that will define the future of war. The cause of this conflict – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – is being distorted and denied by the current occupant of the White House.
The ultimate betrayal
In one of the most shameful episodes in recent US history, the current occupant is abandoning Ukraine, and our NATO allies, in favor of a partnership with Vladimir Putin. I find it sickening. Francis Fukuyama called it The Ultimate Betrayal:
We are in the midst of a global fight between Western liberal democracy and authoritarian government, and in this fight, the United States has just switched sides and signed up with the authoritarian camp.
What Trump has said over the past few days about Ukraine and Russia defies belief. He has accused Ukraine of having started the war by not preemptively surrendering to Russian territorial demands; he has said that Ukraine is not a democracy; and he has said that Ukrainians were wrong to resist Russian aggression. These ideas are likely not ones he thought up himself, but come straight from the mouth of Vladimir Putin, a man Trump has shown great admiration for.
. . . The United States under Donald Trump is not retreating into isolationism. It is actively joining the authoritarian camp.
It’s also worth reading Bret Stephens’ NYT essay (this is a gift link) on America’s Most Shameful Vote Ever at the U.N. “Shameful” is the right word for it.
I’ll say it again: the war in Ukraine deserves more attention. Whether in the lethal technology that the war is brewing up, or the lethal politics that have now infected the White House, this one conflict – I’m sorry to say – reveals the shape of coming fights. The authoritarians and oligarchs are operating freely, without guardrails. But “the rest of us” have a chance to shape the future, too. It starts with awareness.
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Until next time,
-mark
Mark Hurst, founder, Creative Good
Email: mark@creativegood.com
Podcast/radio show: techtonic.fm
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