The Drone and AI Delusion

https://secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/the-drone-and-ai-delusion

by _t9ow • 12 months ago

14 12 12 months ago

secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com

chubot• 12 months ago

militaries do not win wars merely by acquiring new gadgets, but by developing the institutions, training regimens, logistical networks, and doctrinal concepts that enable those tools to be used effectively at scale

That makes sense to me ... sort of like if you want to build a big software project, the team / the communication structure / the product / the motivation will matter a lot more than whether you're using Claude Code or Copilot, etc.

willvarfar• 12 months ago

Although the article is spot on about how its not just technical but also organisational and doctrinal that the US isn't ready for the drone wars if it were to be fighting a peer today let alone tomorrow, it also describes aircraft etc as "few but exquisite" as though the examples of what the US military industrial complex is pushing are cheap and affordable.

The drones that Anduril and Palantir are pushing are also 'exquisite'.

The drones being used so effectively in all domains in Ukraine by both sides are orders of magnitude cheaper still.

The US military industrial complex is out to get good margins selling exquisite systems. No change here, even with the new injection of Silicon Valley cover.

impossiblefork2• 12 months ago

I think this view is incredibly wrong. I suppose it's probably true for today's drones, but I think a completely different device is possible:

An autonomous vehicle, flying at 1-2 metres, very fast, hardly targetable and carrying either a small bomb or a device which projects shrapnel precisely at an individual soldier.

At present machines like this would be expensive and limited in range-- you'd probably need a big GPU on it, you'd probably need some kind primary cell that outperforms rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, maybe split it in two half-- one attacking part and one slow gliding part. Thousands of dollars, and weight, complexity, etc. But I am fairly convinced that machines like this are possible and I don't see how human front-line soldiers can operate in an environment saturated with them. I don't even believe that long-range assaults, 1000 km etc., are something these kinds of things won't be able to do-- after all, many birds migrate vast distances, and I think aluminium contains more energy than fat per weight.

Atomic_Torrfisk• 12 months ago

An autonomous vehicle, flying at 1-2 metres, very fast, hardly targetable and carrying either a small bomb or a device which projects shrapnel precisely at an individual soldier.

We already have that running in UA right now, loitering drones are very hard to shoot down, fast and carry anti-personnel munitions.

The article is wordy, but is ultimately correct. Wars are inherently complex and there is no one size fits all solution for supplychain and combat. Drones will be a feature in a modern military, but not the game changer the venture capitalists want you to believe.

impossiblefork2• 12 months ago

I don't think we do.

Drones that fly low have limited range due to the required fibre spools. There is nothing flying a long distance fast at low altitude.

bloaf2• 12 months ago

So I think the author is right regarding current sales pitches, but also wrong about the long term impact. There is nothing on the market today that would be anything but an incremental improvement in an already existing capability.

However

The thing everyone knows is coming is fully artificial boots-on-the-ground, and this will be a categorical revolution on par with the use of airplanes in warfare. (note: "boots" could still be drones).

Like the author points out "A battalion commander in the Ukrainian Army stated to me a few weeks ago that even in the Summer of 2025, the single most decisive factor in his unit’s ability to hold and take ground is the number of infantry".

The instant you have a factory that churns out the equivalent of a "dude with a rifle in a dugout", you've suddenly changed warfare in all the non-tactical ways the author was talking about.

The politics of war becomes different: your battlefield losses may no longer be measured in lives, no one comes home with PTSD, and no collateral damage is due to soldiers' malice.

The doctrines of war become different. Suicide charges/runbys are fine, there's no need to worry about PoWs, and friendly fire is potentially a thing of the past.

tim3332• 12 months ago

Ukraine has already done a robot assault, although remote controlled rather than AI https://interestingengineering.com/military/ukraine-robot-te...

AndrewDucker• 12 months ago

"is coming" is a prediction so vague as to lack value.

A robot that is able to engage in combat with humans, across random terrain, for long periods without recharging? Some day, sure. Not any time in the next five years, at the very least.

bloaf2• 12 months ago

You're not thinking like a salesman. The value of vague is that you can make your product sound like it is the fulfillment of that prediction in ways that you can't do if the prediction is too concrete.

No one is quite sure what will constitute "sufficiently like a dude in a ditch with a rifle" to transform warfare, and that's precisely why the AI startups are flocking to defense spending like the seagulls to the dump.

gmuslera• 12 months ago

Drones and autonomous systems probably won't be the end of mankind as Terminator and Black Mirror's Metalhead pictured, but civilians will end being their targets, by mistake or design, and it won't be any accountability for them.

morninglight• 12 months ago

Nobody wants to address the fact that we are sitting on vast, widespread stockpiles of nukes.

They will be used.

Anything else is just wishful thinking.

tim3332• 12 months ago

Luckey’s imagined scenario, where Taiwan defeats a Chinese invasion in 2029 outright with swarms of AI-powered drones (cruise missiles), autonomous submarines (torpedoes), and mass-producible missiles (more cruise missiles), is an excellent piece of storytelling. But as a strategic vision, it is hilariously flawed.

The Ukrainians use of naval drones and missiles against Russia's navy has been spectacularly successful to the extent they have had to withdraw from anywhere near Ukraine. While Luckey may be off on the details I'm sure it would be a major issue if China tried to invade Taiwan.

The Drone and AI Delusion

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