People are probably too slow to defend against swarms of drones – US General

Swarms of drones could overwhelm opponents in a war. A US general now suggests that people interfere too much with the defense.

The general responsible for modernizing the US Army has indicated that human intervention is already slowing down certain military technology too much. According to US news site Military.com, General John Murray said that automated swarms of attack drones would be very difficult to stop when the final decision had to be made by a human.

Fending off such an attack would not be impossible, but much more difficult. Therefore, those responsible in the US Department of Defense would have to discuss how many human interventions are necessary with AI-based military technology.

More accurate than humans?

Murray made the testimony during a webinar by the Think Tanks Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If you defend yourself against a swarm of drones, a person may have to make the first decision, but I’m not sure if any person could keep up,” he said and asked: “How much do people have to be involved at all when it comes to non-fatal choices? ” In order to demonstrate the efficiency of the algorithms, he added that it was considered sufficient for soldiers if they correctly classified more than 80 percent of the images of armored vehicles in a reaction test. An AI achieved between 98 and 99 percent in a large-scale test.

With the statements, Murray refers to a current worldwide debate, but it will probably come late. The most recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was apparently decided by the use of kamikaze drones . As the US magazine Forbes writes , there have already been demonstrationsswarms of drones for the military from hundreds of devices, some from thousands of drones are foreseeable. The US Navy is researching how to defend against swarms of millions of drones. That should explain why Murray believes that defense attorneys who have to wait for input from people wouldn’t be up to such swarms. Meanwhile, only a few days ago, the European Parliament demanded that people always have to exercise significant control over AI-based weapons.