Consider an intelligence of machines, moving in one direction. They do not merely take orders; they reason, improvise and engulf. This isn't a sci-fi movie. It's today's battlefield. What to do with an enemy with a thousand faces and the same and only brain, a thousand times faster? The novel reality is compelling the whole world to reconsider its fundamental approach to defense and force AI Robotics to be more of a utility than a combatant.
The Swarm Mind is Knocking on the Door
Forget single drones. It is the swarm intelligence that really jumps. Therefore, every single unit is interrelated and exchanges information and makes decentralized judgments on the spot. This results in a strong and dynamic network. It does not mean anything to take one unit down, the swarm just restructures and keeps its business. This marks the biggest change in the Robotics in the military since the discovery of the tank.
"It's a paradox. We are even more autonomous and more collaborative in systems. The entirety is even more deadly than the parts of which it consists."
I am an Autonomous Systems Analyst employed by Dr. Arisaka Chen.
The recent wars provide a bleak outlook. In Ukraine, basic commercial drones are transformed to drop grenades devastatingly. In the meantime, major powers are experimenting with swarms much larger, and in coordinated swarms. Furthermore, In a demonstration in 2023, 130 drones as part of a swarm successfully tracked and detected the targets in an urban environment (military targets). The era of independent war has come.
Breaching the Unbeatable Defense
So what do you do to bring down a system that is designed to intercept the fastest jets and missiles? You don't outrun it. You outnumber its logic. Advanced air defense systems are designed with a restricted number of high-value targets that it is able to track and engage. A swarm, in any case, poses a dilemma that cannot be achieved impossible: excessively low-cost targets.
- Saturation is the strategy. Swarm is able to attack in several directions at the same time in a coordinated way.
- It wears to waste costly fortifications. To shoot a drone that costs 1,000 down a $4 million interceptor missile is a futile battle, in terms of cost as well as strategy.
This was being demonstrated in a cold war game recently. Swarm attack on a navy destroyer was simulated by analysts at the center of strategic and international studies. The sophisticated Aegis system of the ship was bombarded. It simply ran out of missiles. The lesson was clear. Brute force firepower has now been surpassed by brute force computing.
With Sky to ground: the Humanoid robot link
Now deliver this idea out of heaven into earth. That is the following rational, and horrifying, step. Talk of an aerial swarm of clearing a building. After that, it is held by a squad of Humanoid Robot units. These ground robots would be run using the identical hive-mind coordination, and share sensory data and cover each other.
"The combination of AI Robotics aerial and ground will result in a multi-domain swarm, capable of functioning at any location. It is a full battle field solution."
They constitute the entirety of the defense system, making the budget a key factor in its operation. -- Marcus Thorne, Defense Technology Journalist.
The more recent demonstrations presented by Boston Dynamics demonstrate the implementation of complex and synchronized tasks by robots. The tactical application is obvious, though the tactical application is still in the development. We are on our way to a completely wired battlefield. The sky and ground will be united into one, smart and automated war fighting system.
The Autonomous Speed Human Cost
This leads to the most important question. Who is the decision maker on life or death? Having a human in the loop is a term that makes it sound like it is an ethical decision. However, with a swarm attack, all occurs within a few seconds. Is it possible to have a human commander who could manage and sanction hundreds of personal lethal actions in machine speed?
The answer is probably no. This puts a lot of pressure of giving total freedom. The same technology that has been created to safeguard soldiers might end up eliminating human judgment in the kill chain. The plea to ban lethal autonomous weapons world wide is still being implored in an open letter by thousands of AI researchers and ethicists. The political will however, appears to be going in the other way.
A New Arms Race Has Begun
The genie is out of the bottle. Swarm programs in military AI are currently under development in more than 30 countries. This isn't a future problem. It is an ongoing, growing gun battle. The ethics of war are being reformed at a faster pace than diplomats can speak.
We are at a crossroads. Do we accept that war has turned into a machine battle, in which machines decide the outcome? Or do we draw the straight line of human agency in war? The technology will not hold back until we make up our minds. The swarm is training, evolving and ready to go on its next mission. It is now time to give the answers to these questions before the robots prefer to do it.
