Last March, during tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territory, the IDF reportedly used swarms of drones backed by AI to identify targets and organize strikes with greater speed and precision.
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[EN VIDÉO] The US military tests a squadron of 103 mini autonomous drones In the United States, the Department of Defense successfully tested a group of 103 microdrones dropped from three fighter jets. Driven by artificial intelligence, these little 16-centimeter-long craft have demonstrated their ability to fly in formation and make decisions to adapt to circumstances.
Here is the first war of artificial intelligence, if however the idea of war can be associated with that of intelligence. Its battleground is that of tensions between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. According to NewScientist, last May, the Israel Defense Forces claimed to have used AI and supercomputers to identify the targets of the strikes. It’s a swarm of drones guided by this AI that allegedly identified new targets in the Gaza Strip after supercomputers combed through data collected by satellites, aircraft and ground troops. It is the IDF Intelligence Corps Unit 8200 (acronym for the Israel Defense Forces) which is at the origin of this AI and its powerful algorithms; it has also been used for two years now. For more details and to provide prediction on the times and places of enemy attacks, the AI feeds on the archives of data collected for years in the field or in the airs.
Israeli forces do not give details of the characteristics of their swarm of drones, but they claim that AI brings a dramatic reduction in duration combat, because it allows a great deal of information to be processed very quickly and to see more clearly in order to make an informed strategic decision.
Swarms of suicide drones for the French army?
Whenever we talk aboutHE and the autonomy of drones, we think of killer robots and, in this area, fiction may well give way to reality soon. This autonomy of armed robots is precisely what worries the UN Security Council and Humans Rights Watch. The question of prohibiting the development of this type of weapon is currently being debated with the proliferation of “consumable” drones loaded with technologies and capable of carrying out their mission independently. Besides, Futura evoked recently the attack of an autonomous armed drone in Libya against soldiers affiliates to General Haftar. For the first time, an AI-guided Turkish Kargu-2 drone identified and possibly attacked human targets on its own without the control of an operator.
The French army has no real defense against such swarms of drones that pass through radar
The question of the use of such drones but also of protecting themselves is also debated in France. Tomorrow, July 7, MEPs will also work on the conclusions of a fact-finding mission dedicated to the use of drones on the battlefields. The Senate will present in the wake of a report on the operation of these aircraft in the armed forces. It is already clear that the French army has no real defense against such swarms of drones that pass through radar. The soldiers are certainly equipped with a few jammer guns and are developing other systems of anti-drone fight, but nothing is really operational.
On the offensive side, in addition to the 12 “big” MQ-9 Reaper drones available to the French Air Force and which are at the origin of 58% of strikes in the Sahel, the senators suggest that the armed forces take action. equip drones that can be sacrificed during combat. It would be, in other words, suicide drones serving, with the choice of decoys or offensive swarms to saturate the enemy defenses. They could also be used to stealthily penetrate enemy territory by slipping through the cracks of defense systems.
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