An autonomous drone may have killed people in Libya last year without any human input. Asia Times. A UN report said the drone may have killed people during a skirmish between the Government of National Accord and supporters of General Haftar in March of 2020. The drone was a Turkish made quadcopter that has the ability to recognize and fire on targets without human input. The use of autonomous drones is controversial to say the least with fears of the drones picking wrong targets or going rouge a real danger. It is unclear if anyone actually died in the drone strikes.
My Comment:
Troubling news to say the least. The fact that the Turks, of all people, have a drone that can operate without human control is disturbing. And the fact that this technology was used last year and nobody knew about it until now is even worse.
It's unclear how powerful this drone actually is. The STM Kagru is, according to Wikipedia, a kamikaze swarm drone that crashes into its targets. It can apparently recognize specific targets. It can be deployed in swarms and it too small to be taken out with most anti-aircraft weapons. It is, in short, a terrifying weapon system.
It's unclear how well the drone works. The UN report did not say whether or not the drone actually killed someone, only that it may have done so. It's very possible that it failed in its mission. That may have been due to design flaws, bad luck or effective countermeasures but it's also very possible that it worked. And even if it only works some of the time I can see why governments would want to use them.
Should this technology exist? I do think there is a danger here. It's not a Terminator war of the machines kind of threat but it is very possible that these weapons will fail and kill civilians or even their own military if they get confused.
I also think that these weapons could be a very effective terrorist weapon. Presumably they would have less concern if the weapons go rogue and they would be perfect for an assassination attempt or for general terrorism. Keeping these weapons out of the hands of terrorists would be a major goal but it's complicated that they have been developed by the Turks. I trust the Islamic government of Turkey about as much as I can throw them, they have supplied terrorists with weapons before.
But I don't think the genie will go back into the bottle at this point. These weapons now exist and have been used in combat. Other countries will have to develop their own and/or develop countermeasures to defeat them. An international ban won't work as I think non-state actors will be able to develop these weapons as well. After all, before their defeat, ISIS was already experimenting with drone technology.
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