War ethics: Are drones in Ukraine a step toward robots that kill?
Amid the bewildering array of brutality on and off the battlefields of Ukraine, military ethicists have been keeping a close eye on whether the war could also become a proving ground for drones that use artificial intelligence to decide whom to hurt.
Early in the war, Moscow was rumored to be employing “kamikaze” drones as “hunter-killer robots.” Though the Russian company that created the weapon boasted of its AI skills – the kind that could potentially enable a machine rather than a human to choose its targets – the consensus among defense analysts has been that these claims were more marketing hype than credible capability.
Yet there’s no doubt that the demand for AI in drones has been voracious and growing. The drones on
