Artificial intelligence is reshaping military strategy and weaponry. Could autonomous killing machines be next?

How are militaries deploying AI? 
Some countries are employing the technology to speed up decision-making, giving commanders an edge in combat. In its war in Gaza, Israel has relied on a machine learning system called The Gospel that is thought to crunch vast quantities of data from satellites, radars, drones, and other sources to identify Hamas targets, from rocket launchers to command posts to individual fighters. "Basically, Gospel imitates what a group of intelligence officers used to do in the past," said Tal Mimran, an Israeli cybersecurity expert. Gospel can suggest 200 targets in about 10 days, a rate 50 times faster than that of its human counterparts. AI also has a growing physical presence on the battlefield, with autonomous combat devices — basically fighting robots — starting to proliferate across air, land, and sea. For now, human controllers make the final decision about what and when to strike, but some experts believe it's only a matter of time before robots are making deadly battlefield decisions, or AI command systems are giving troops direct firing orders. The advantage in war will go "to those who no longer see the world like humans," Army research officials Thom Hawkins and Alexander Kott wrote in 2022. "We can now be targeted by something relentless, a thing that does not sleep." 

Is the U.S. using the technology? 
The Pentagon, which requested $3 billion for AI-related projects in its most recent budget submission, is rushing to develop autonomous weaponry and AI-powered battlefield-management systems. It has already deployed miniature surveillance drones with a degree of autonomy, and a Gospel-like system called Project Maven that has been used to locate Houthi rocket launchers in Yemen and to narrow targets for strikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. That's just the beginning of the Pentagon's AI ambitions. Its Replicator program aims to build thousands of relatively inexpensive self-guided combat devices — aircraft, ground vehicles, and sea vessels and submarines — that could identify and swarm targets autonomously. That program is intended to offset China's numerical advantage in warships, aircraft, and troops should Beijing decide to invade Taiwan, a U.S. ally. "We'll counter the [Chinese military's] mass with mass of our own," U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said last year, "but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat." That program is still in its early stages, but others, such as the Air Force's plan to deploy 1,000 so-called collaborative combat aircraft, are farther along. 

How will those aircraft be used? 
They're AI-powered drones that fly alongside piloted aircraft. These robotic wingmen cost as little as $3 million apiece — a single F-35 jet costs $80 million — and could zoom ahead to conduct high-risk surveillance or attack enemy air defenses in missions considered too dangerous for humans. Fighter pilots are currently making test runs alongside an experimental aircraft, the XQ-58A Valkyrie, at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. "It's a very strange feeling," said Maj. Ross Elder. "I'm flying off the wing of something that's making its own decisions. And it's not a human brain." Similar machines are appearing in the seas. Next year, the Australian navy will take delivery of three unmanned, AI-powered submarines called Ghost Sharks. Those school bus-size craft cost $15 million apiece — less than 0.1 percent of the price tag of the human-operated nuclear subs Australia has on order — and can be built quickly and descend much deeper and linger underwater for longer than traditional manned subs. But the use of such technology in war carries "a huge amount of legal, ethical, and moral implications," said U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

What are the concerns? 
Some experts worry that AI's ability to analyze massive amounts of information — surveillance data, social media posts, even shopping habits — could result in these weapons being used to target specific ethnicities or other population groups. Drone swarms, which are being developed by China as well as the U.S., "could wipe out, say, all males between 12 and 60 in a city," said Stuart Russell, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. "Unlike nuclear weapons, they leave no radioactive crater, and they keep all the valuable physical assets intact." There's also the fear that autonomous weapons will eventually be allowed to make decisions on when and what to attack — a power over life and death that, until now, has rested with humans. And while AI is smart, it's not perfect. AI chatbots frequently make up or "hallucinate" nonexistent facts, books, and people, leading some scientists to worry that AI weapons or command systems might hallucinate "legitimate targets," with fatal consequences. 

Will AI be allowed to make kill decisions? 
The U.S. says its AI-driven weapon systems will not be allowed to take lethal action independently. "It's not Terminator," said 18th Airborne Corps Col. Joseph O'Callaghan, who is overseeing the testing of Project Maven. But in a possible sign of what's next, the U.S., Russia, Israel, and others have argued at the United Nations that human control of autonomous weapons is not required by international law. Meanwhile, China has called for narrow legal limits on autonomous weapons that arms-control advocates say are effectively meaningless. In an AI arms race that could decide the global balance of power, no nation is willing to commit to binding agreements that might cede advantage to a less constrained foe. "Individual decisions versus not doing individual decisions is the difference between winning and losing," U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said, "and you're not going to lose."

Ukraine's frontline AI laboratory 
Faced with a larger and better-equipped enemy, Ukraine has turned to AI to help neutralize Russia's battlefield advantage. With the support of U.S. tech firms such as Palantir and Clearview AI, Kyiv has used AI-powered systems to analyze satellite images and drone footage of Russian positions, sift and interpret Russian radio communications, and detect land mines. It has also sent AI-enhanced drones into the air, most of which rely on a human operator to make attack decisions. But electronic jamming by Russian forces can sever the link between human and drone, rendering the vehicle useless. So Ukrainian drone firm Twist Robotics has developed an autonomous quadcopter that can stay on target and complete a strike even if the command signal is blocked — and if the target moves. It's not known if these smart drones have yet been used to kill Russian troops. "The peak of this type of warfare isn't even here yet," a Ukrainian drone commander told The Times (U.K.). "It lies in the future."

Everyone can now "stop worrying about Kate Middleton," said Margaret Hartmann in New York magazine, but they won't. Since the Princess of Wales disappeared from the public eye on Jan. 17 to undergo abdominal surgery, wild rumors have circulated online about the "missing royal": she's critically ill; she's hiding in shame after her husband, Prince William, had an affair with a neighbor; she's dead. In an apparent attempt to silence the conspiracy theorists, Kensington Palace posted a photo on social media last week of Middleton smiling with her three children. But observers noticed signs of photoshopping — hands were blurred, Middleton's hair had an odd texture, her wedding ring was missing — which fueled yet more speculation and led Middleton to apologize for her "experiment with editing." This week, British tabloid The Sun shared footage of Middleton out in public, buying groceries with William. "This should shut the trolls up!" declared The Sun. It didn't. Amateur detectives insisted the woman in the cell- phone video was "a Kate impersonator." 

It wasn't supposed to go like this, said Mark Landler in The New York Times. The young royals initially embraced social media as a way to "bypass the tabloid press they reviled"; William and Prince Harry's mother, Diana, died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 after a high-speed pursuit by paparazzi. But in trying to control her image, Middleton now finds herself "dogged by an online pack no less feral than the photographers who chased Diana in Paris." We want the impossible from the royals, said Tim Stanley in The Telegraph (U.K.): "to be distant yet familiar, to show us everything but never too much." If Middleton had shared a real family photo — her tired and recovering from surgery, a kid bored and in tears — we'd have called her "a train wreck." So she tidied up the snap and is now "labeled a fake." 

Consider Kate-gate a practice run for our artificial intelligence-mediated future, said Molly Roberts in The Washington Post. AI tools will give anyone with a smartphone the ability to create ever more convincing fake images — the pope in a puffer jacket, Joe Biden and Donald Trump in a brawl — and will also make it easier for people to "claim images are fake even when they're not." Our shared reality, already frayed, will be further shredded. The only solution "would be for everyone to be completely and utterly real" all the time, especially the powerful and the famous. "Unfortunately, they're probably the least likely to do it."

RuPaul regards the world as a relentlessly hostile place, said Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker. The host of RuPaul's Drag Race, he has perhaps done more than anyone else to bring drag into the mainstream — all while battling prejudice from social conservatives, his own family, and, he says, the Black community. "I've won 14 Emmys," says the drag icon, 63. "You would think I'd have been on the cover of Ebony, if that still exists. I don't represent what the Black community wants to lift up. I never have." He has little patience for anyone who tries to hide away from what he regards as the innate cruelty of life. "Humans have been horrible since the beginning of time," RuPaul says. "Parents teaching their kids about safe spaces, and 'I feel uncomfortable.' It's, like, You know what? The world is not a safe space. You have to find the comfort. It's mostly uncomfortable."

That pessimism has led him to build a fortified compound on the 60,000-acre Wyoming ranch owned by his husband, Georges LeBar. "I'm fearing the absolute worst. We are moments away from civil war. I am plotting a safety net." RuPaul says he wouldn't describe the compound as "a bunker," but admits it's designed to withstand disaster. "It's a lot of concrete and a lot of things."