Autonomous AI Killer Drone Used in Combat

Hernandez, Joe. "A Military Drone With A Mind Of Its Own Was Used In Combat, U.N. Says." NPR, 1 June 2021. As of December 2022 still on line at link here.[1]

Military-grade autonomous drones can fly themselves to a specific location, pick their own targets and kill without the assistance of a remote human operator. Such weapons are known to be in development, but until recently there were no reported cases of autonomous drones killing fighters on the battlefield.

Now, a United Nations report about a March 2020 skirmish in the military conflict in Libya says such a drone, known as a lethal autonomous weapons system — or LAWS — has made its wartime debut.

No confirmed reports of deaths, but “'If anyone was killed in an autonomous attack, it would likely represent an historic first known case of artificial intelligence-based autonomous weapons being used to kill,' Zachary Kallenborn wrote in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" (lightly edited).

RDE, finishing, 15Dec22