6 ms·

US Military struggling to deploy AI weapons

50 points by gsf_emergency_2 1y ago

charcircuit 1y ago
The link doesn't work. Also missiles already use AI to know where they are, so I'm skeptical that the headline is true.
- dijit 1y ago
  That's the previous generations of AI which has been rebranded to "machine vision" and "machine learning" rather than "AI" due to the numerous hype crashes making the term AI unpalatable for a generation. It's materially different than "Generative AI" which is the current trend of AI hype, which is what I think the "AI" in the title is referring to.
  - TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
    Unlikely to be Gen AI. The military applications of missiles that can generate LinkedIn posts about B2B marketing as they descend on their targets are probably quite limited.
    - dijit 1y ago
      You’re not using your imagination enough. Warfare is more than just munitions.
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        Yes, I see great potential in injecting your AI into the enemies communication system. Being able to have an AI try and persuade your enemy to do things in your favor, confuse them, or censor information all processed in real time and potentially at scale of the enemy's entire army is very powerful. It could even take a passive role and serve as pure intelligence gathering of the current state of things.
        giantg2 1y ago
        Aside from the potential scale, those arent really new ideas. The scale could actually be a hindrance. Once it's used, it's future utility drops dramatically. Kind of how the intelligence community don't want to burn their zero days or exploits for low value operations. Even utilizing intelligence frorm passive opperation can tip them off.
      - michaelt 1y ago
        In this instance the article does say "An ambitious Pentagon plan to field thousands of cutting-edge drones to prepare for a potential conflict with China has [...] struggled to find software that can successfully control large numbers of drones, made by different companies, working in coordination to find and potentially strike a target—a key to making the Replicator vision work." So these particular "AI weapons" would appear to be munitions.
      - giantg2 1y ago
        I feel like a lot of those other uses are more aligned to the three letter agencies for intelligence and influence if were talking mostly about gen AI. I assume the next best place (excluding munitions and their delivery systems) would be cyber operations. But this realm is touchy and the leaders don't want to start a shooting war with cyber retaliation/strikes. The oversite, need for human in the loop, and aversion to collateral damage make AI weapons difficult to develop and deploy, especially if we earent counting older computer vison etc. It's no surprise the military is having trouble developing and deploying AI weapons in that environment.
    - amelius 1y ago
      You can use Gen AI to generate actuator inputs.
    - parsimo2010 1y ago
      How about a multimodal model that looks at sensor inputs and decides about what it sees being the actual target and what might be a decoy, and generates guidance commands to the real target? Does that sound like a military application of the GenAI capabilities we know exist today with vision and computer use? Or perhaps an AI with a tactics/strategy prompt that watches the statuses/locations of several drones and coordinates their actions to achieve an overall objective? Does that sound like a military application that the military could be working on?
      - deleted 1y ago
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- grumple 1y ago
  The link works for me. > The Pentagon has also struggled to find software that can successfully control large numbers of drones, made by different companies, working in coordination to find and potentially strike a target—a key to making the Replicator vision work. So the software can't work with arbitrary drones. The article also talks about the high cost of some of the drones. > Of the dozen or so autonomous systems acquired for Replicator, three were unfinished or existed only as a concept at the time they were selected, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Among Replicator’s shortcomings, officials said, is that the Defense Innovation Unit was directed to buy drones that had older technology, and it didn’t rigorously test platforms and software before acquiring them, other people familiar with the matter said. So the military bought promises and basically funded some research. That's fine imo, they do that all the time, but their expectations did not align with results in these cases. And they didn't set good requirements for the platforms. I expect the hopes for AI-driven drones with the ability to target individual humans by identity is probably not quite here yet. You have to get around jamming, fit any tech on a small platform, and it has to be cheap and disposable. And you don't actually want "AI", because you don't want it to mistakenly kill civilians, you want highly accurate computer vision. In Russia and Ukraine, they are manually piloting drones that are attached by fiberoptic cable. It's cheap and effective, but requires a human pilot. At least for now, I would guess this is a much more effective (in results and cost) way to go. A human can pilot dozens of disposable drones in a day that drop their payload and are then discarded.
  - nbngeorcjhe 1y ago
    > because you don't want it to mistakenly kill civilians says who? the US military is completely fine with mistakenly killing civilians
    - Our_Benefactors 1y ago
      > want to > fine with In military theater it’s an important distinction. But really, you just wanted to post a comment trashing the US. It didn’t add to the conversation.
- MelancholyMiser 1y ago
  Redirects to home in Android FF with UBO. Chrome loads the article on the same device.
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Missiles famously know where they are not. https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ
  - mandeepj 1y ago
    > Missiles famously know where they are not. what if it misses a few locations where they are not?
- dredmorbius 1y ago
  Archive: <https://archive.is/JTx8p https://archive.is/JTx8p> (Origin works for me as well.)
deleted 1y ago
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deleted 1y ago
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gitremote 1y ago
The US is too proud to admit that Ukraine is the world expert on drone warfare and that Americans should learn from Ukrainians. "Ukraine's homegrown drones have become increasingly lethal, critical tools in war with Russia" https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-fedorov-drones-war-russia-1.7465411 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-fedorov-drones-war-rus... "Poland turns to Ukraine for drone warfare expertise after Russian weapons enter airspace" https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/poland-turns-to-ukraine-for-drone-warfare-expertise-after-russian-weapons-enter-airspace https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/poland-turns-to-ukraine-f... The US needs Ukraine to exist and not be annexed by Russia.
- alganet 1y ago
  What if their drones weren't good? Just a country being attacked, with no strategic war technology transfer. Then, what should the US position be? Call me an idealist, but I think the priority in this conflict should be their sovereignty and the well being of the people over there. Otherwise it's just weird.
- matusp 1y ago
  Two points here. (1) A lot of technology that Ukraine uses is based on what the Western countries have provided them. (2) Ukraine struggles with AI as well, in fact, according to some sources, Ukraine is already behind Russia in drone technology. One of the reasons cited is that they invested heavily into AI and it did not yield viable drones. On the other hand, Russians decided to invest into manually controlled drones controlled via optic cables and they are very effective.
  - apercu 1y ago
    I trust very few "sources", especially these days. And even more especially, in the middle of a war between two former USSR states that have deep histories in manipulating public opinion and weaponizing that against their adversaries.
    - _t9ow 1y ago
      > weaponizing that against their adversaries I understand your skepticism, but here is an interview from April 2025 with the founder of VYRIY, a Ukrainian drone company: https://militarnyi.com/en/news/vyriy-founder-compares-accuracy-of-ukrainian-and-russian-fiber-optic-drones/ https://militarnyi.com/en/news/vyriy-founder-compares-accura... According to him, Russian drones are far superior. "In terms of [Ukrainian drone vs Russian drone] quality, well, like 10% vs. 80%. It’s not even comparable,” Oleksii Babenko sums up.
latchkey 1y ago
I once backed a kickstarter for a US company called Vantage Robotics. They were building a cool drone and it looked like it would be fun to have. It took them about 2 years to get it delivered and by then, drone technology had advanced far past what they were offering. The thing crashed on its first flight, destroying it. Instead of just shutting down, they dropped all their early supporters and pivoted to US military contracts. Their website is still full of out dated technology. Reading this headline is no surprise to me.
- beefnugs 1y ago
  You are right, the only moral thing for them to do is ship fully explosive military grade versions of their product to all backers
chaostheory 1y ago
Getting this patchwork of weapons to work will be another test for Anduril and Palmer Luckey

charcircuit 1y ago

The link doesn't work. Also missiles already use AI to know where they are, so I'm skeptical that the headline is true.

dijit 1y ago
That's the previous generations of AI which has been rebranded to "machine vision" and "machine learning" rather than "AI" due to the numerous hype crashes making the term AI unpalatable for a generation. It's materially different than "Generative AI" which is the current trend of AI hype, which is what I think the "AI" in the title is referring to.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  Unlikely to be Gen AI. The military applications of missiles that can generate LinkedIn posts about B2B marketing as they descend on their targets are probably quite limited.
  - dijit 1y ago
    You’re not using your imagination enough. Warfare is more than just munitions.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Yes, I see great potential in injecting your AI into the enemies communication system. Being able to have an AI try and persuade your enemy to do things in your favor, confuse them, or censor information all processed in real time and potentially at scale of the enemy's entire army is very powerful. It could even take a passive role and serve as pure intelligence gathering of the current state of things.
      - giantg2 1y ago
        Aside from the potential scale, those arent really new ideas. The scale could actually be a hindrance. Once it's used, it's future utility drops dramatically. Kind of how the intelligence community don't want to burn their zero days or exploits for low value operations. Even utilizing intelligence frorm passive opperation can tip them off.
    - michaelt 1y ago
      In this instance the article does say "An ambitious Pentagon plan to field thousands of cutting-edge drones to prepare for a potential conflict with China has [...] struggled to find software that can successfully control large numbers of drones, made by different companies, working in coordination to find and potentially strike a target—a key to making the Replicator vision work." So these particular "AI weapons" would appear to be munitions.
    - giantg2 1y ago
      I feel like a lot of those other uses are more aligned to the three letter agencies for intelligence and influence if were talking mostly about gen AI. I assume the next best place (excluding munitions and their delivery systems) would be cyber operations. But this realm is touchy and the leaders don't want to start a shooting war with cyber retaliation/strikes. The oversite, need for human in the loop, and aversion to collateral damage make AI weapons difficult to develop and deploy, especially if we earent counting older computer vison etc. It's no surprise the military is having trouble developing and deploying AI weapons in that environment.
  - amelius 1y ago
    You can use Gen AI to generate actuator inputs.
  - parsimo2010 1y ago
    How about a multimodal model that looks at sensor inputs and decides about what it sees being the actual target and what might be a decoy, and generates guidance commands to the real target? Does that sound like a military application of the GenAI capabilities we know exist today with vision and computer use? Or perhaps an AI with a tactics/strategy prompt that watches the statuses/locations of several drones and coordinates their actions to achieve an overall objective? Does that sound like a military application that the military could be working on?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
grumple 1y ago
The link works for me. > The Pentagon has also struggled to find software that can successfully control large numbers of drones, made by different companies, working in coordination to find and potentially strike a target—a key to making the Replicator vision work. So the software can't work with arbitrary drones. The article also talks about the high cost of some of the drones. > Of the dozen or so autonomous systems acquired for Replicator, three were unfinished or existed only as a concept at the time they were selected, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Among Replicator’s shortcomings, officials said, is that the Defense Innovation Unit was directed to buy drones that had older technology, and it didn’t rigorously test platforms and software before acquiring them, other people familiar with the matter said. So the military bought promises and basically funded some research. That's fine imo, they do that all the time, but their expectations did not align with results in these cases. And they didn't set good requirements for the platforms. I expect the hopes for AI-driven drones with the ability to target individual humans by identity is probably not quite here yet. You have to get around jamming, fit any tech on a small platform, and it has to be cheap and disposable. And you don't actually want "AI", because you don't want it to mistakenly kill civilians, you want highly accurate computer vision. In Russia and Ukraine, they are manually piloting drones that are attached by fiberoptic cable. It's cheap and effective, but requires a human pilot. At least for now, I would guess this is a much more effective (in results and cost) way to go. A human can pilot dozens of disposable drones in a day that drop their payload and are then discarded.
- nbngeorcjhe 1y ago
  > because you don't want it to mistakenly kill civilians says who? the US military is completely fine with mistakenly killing civilians
  - Our_Benefactors 1y ago
    > want to > fine with In military theater it’s an important distinction. But really, you just wanted to post a comment trashing the US. It didn’t add to the conversation.
MelancholyMiser 1y ago
Redirects to home in Android FF with UBO. Chrome loads the article on the same device.
TiredOfLife 1y ago
Missiles famously know where they are not. https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ https://youtu.be/bZe5J8SVCYQ
- mandeepj 1y ago
  > Missiles famously know where they are not. what if it misses a few locations where they are not?
dredmorbius 1y ago
Archive: <https://archive.is/JTx8p https://archive.is/JTx8p> (Origin works for me as well.)

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

gitremote 1y ago

The US is too proud to admit that Ukraine is the world expert on drone warfare and that Americans should learn from Ukrainians. "Ukraine's homegrown drones have become increasingly lethal, critical tools in war with Russia" https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-fedorov-drones-war-russia-1.7465411 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-fedorov-drones-war-rus... "Poland turns to Ukraine for drone warfare expertise after Russian weapons enter airspace" https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/poland-turns-to-ukraine-for-drone-warfare-expertise-after-russian-weapons-enter-airspace https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/poland-turns-to-ukraine-f... The US needs Ukraine to exist and not be annexed by Russia.

alganet 1y ago
What if their drones weren't good? Just a country being attacked, with no strategic war technology transfer. Then, what should the US position be? Call me an idealist, but I think the priority in this conflict should be their sovereignty and the well being of the people over there. Otherwise it's just weird.
matusp 1y ago
Two points here. (1) A lot of technology that Ukraine uses is based on what the Western countries have provided them. (2) Ukraine struggles with AI as well, in fact, according to some sources, Ukraine is already behind Russia in drone technology. One of the reasons cited is that they invested heavily into AI and it did not yield viable drones. On the other hand, Russians decided to invest into manually controlled drones controlled via optic cables and they are very effective.
- apercu 1y ago
  I trust very few "sources", especially these days. And even more especially, in the middle of a war between two former USSR states that have deep histories in manipulating public opinion and weaponizing that against their adversaries.
  - _t9ow 1y ago
    > weaponizing that against their adversaries I understand your skepticism, but here is an interview from April 2025 with the founder of VYRIY, a Ukrainian drone company: https://militarnyi.com/en/news/vyriy-founder-compares-accuracy-of-ukrainian-and-russian-fiber-optic-drones/ https://militarnyi.com/en/news/vyriy-founder-compares-accura... According to him, Russian drones are far superior. "In terms of [Ukrainian drone vs Russian drone] quality, well, like 10% vs. 80%. It’s not even comparable,” Oleksii Babenko sums up.

latchkey 1y ago

I once backed a kickstarter for a US company called Vantage Robotics. They were building a cool drone and it looked like it would be fun to have. It took them about 2 years to get it delivered and by then, drone technology had advanced far past what they were offering. The thing crashed on its first flight, destroying it. Instead of just shutting down, they dropped all their early supporters and pivoted to US military contracts. Their website is still full of out dated technology. Reading this headline is no surprise to me.

beefnugs 1y ago
You are right, the only moral thing for them to do is ship fully explosive military grade versions of their product to all backers

chaostheory 1y ago

Getting this patchwork of weapons to work will be another test for Anduril and Palmer Luckey