In the spiraling race to develop new, better, and more drones, artificial intelligence is one of the new frontiers that Ukraine hopes to gain an edge on before Russia has the chance to do so. It is one.
But the demands of intense warfare raise pressing concerns about how quickly AI will take to the skies and how reliable the nascent fusion of drones and AI will be in the coming months.
Ukraine's Drone Czar and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov has suggested that AI drone prototypes will appear on the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine by the end of the year.
It appears that this technology already exists. Earlier this week, Ukrainian drone strikes against the Tatarstan region, more than 1,000 kilometers inside Russian territory, once again focused attention on the reach of Ukrainian drones.
Some of the Kiev drones that were targeting Russia's energy infrastructure have started using rudimentary forms of AI to cushion the effects of jamming and aid navigation, CNN reported on Tuesday. Ta.
An anonymous source close to Ukraine's drone program said: “The use of artificial intelligence allows for precision in the face of jamming. Each aircraft has a terminal computer with satellite and terrain data. It’s on board,” he told the network.
As drones have evolved, so have anti-drone technologies. Jamming is at the heart of Kiev and Moscow's efforts to bring down enemy drones and throw them off course before they can complete their missions. AI, particularly machine vision, is one of the tools aimed at repelling these effects.
The purpose of machine vision is to learn to distinguish where a drone is on a particular terrain and find a way to independently navigate to the target.
“The main goal is to break the dependence on communication between the drone and its operator, and between the drone and the satellites for navigation,” said Samuel Bendet of the US think tank CNA. newsweek.
Given the ubiquity of counter-drone technology, using drones that can attack targets without operator direction and complete missions despite interference is a clear battlefield advantage.
“There are even systems that can look at the ground below and work out where it is to avoid GPS jamming,” said Steve Wright, a UK-based drone expert. newsweek.
Under the pressure of war, Kiev and Moscow want to integrate new experimental AI in a much shorter time frame than many countries in the West have developed and discussed this technology.
In Ukraine, Bendet said, “they are being rapidly used without significant obstacles or guardrails in order to quickly gain an advantage over the enemy.”
Wright said that when it comes to AI, it is impossible to be completely sure that a computer “will not do something totally unexpected and dangerous.” “Western countries are spending a lot of effort to address this problem, but of course Ukrainians can't afford that.”
Russia has also said it is introducing AI to its drones. Bendet and analyst Jane Pinellis wrote in an explanatory article on the Reef War website in January that the Russian military is working with volunteer groups to develop AI, and that “if resources are scarce, But this contrasts sharply with the prudent and responsible American approach.” .
Russia and Ukraine “will try to imitate each other's AI successes in the shortest possible time, and this AI race is the current tip of the spear in the global AI technology race,” Bendet said.
Anonymous sources told Bloomberg in mid-February that several countries supporting Kiev were working to send AI-powered drones to Ukraine that could collectively attack Russian positions.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, finding common ground and finding connections.