This may be one of the worst technological developments for humanity since gunpowder:
This is the type of AI that all leading experts have warned us about. German defense firm Helsing has announced it will provide Ukraine with 4,000 HX-2 “Karma” kamikaze drones this month. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he had been “very pleased that the delivery of these drones equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) technology is already underway.”
With a top speed of 137 mph, these drones are capable of traveling up to 62 miles and can be loaded with various warheads for maximum destruction against armored vehicles, buildings, or platoons. The company states that these drones do not need a human operator, rather, they will be programmed to “search for, re-identify, and engage targets, even without a signal or a continuous data connection.” A human operator may “stay in the loop,” per the company’s messaging, but these weapons are designed to act autonomously.
“With HX-2, we have created a new smart effector that combines mass, autonomy and precision. Individual HX-2s can reliably engage armored targets in highly contested environments. When deployed along borders at scale, HX-2 can serve as a powerful counter invasion shield against enemy land forces,” Helsing’s co-founder Niklas Köhler stated. The other co-founder, Gundbert Scherf, said that NATO in particular has been eager for this technology. On one hand, the company says that these drones will retain human oversight, but on the other hand, the entire purpose of their design is to be autonomous.
Forget all the Skynet possibilities. Begun the Hacker Wars have. The easiest and most effective way to combat AI-controlled drone swarms is by putting a backdoor in the manufacturing process and giving yourself the ability to take control of them. And the utility of these autonomous killer drones in repressing civilian populations is obvious; combined with facial recognition technology it could be used to deny any movement to persons deemed undeniable.
It is informative that while knives are being banned by governments, this sort of lethal weaponry continues to be legally developed. Of course, civilians are going to acquire it too, which should make for a very interesting arms race.
But if they’re actually being used on Russian troops, I definitely wouldn’t want to be working in a Helsing factory. Or at their corporate HQ. I can’t imagine they would not be a priority on the Russian target list.