The US Air Force wants $5.8 billion to build 1,000 AI-driven unmanned combat aircraft, possibly more, as part of its next generation air dominance initiative::The unmanned aircraft are ideal for suicide missions, the Air Force says. Human rights advocates call the autonomous lethal weapons “slaughterbots.”
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The Air Force is seeking a multibillion-dollar budgetary allowance to research and build at least a thousand, but possibly more, unmanned aircraft driven by AI pilots, according to service plans.
Later this year, the craft will be tested in a simulation where it will create its own strategy to chase and kill a target over the Gulf of Mexico, the Times reported.
The budgetary estimate, which Congress has not yet approved, lists $5.8 billion in planned expenses over five years to build collaborative combat aircraft, systems like Valkyrie.
Kratos Defense, which makes the Valkyrie, would not comment on collaborative combat aircraft, citing the classified nature of the program.
Other AI-weapons opponents, such as the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, call these advancements “slaughterbots” because algorithmic decision-making in weapons allows for faster combat that can increase the threats of rapid conflict escalation and unpredictability — as well as the risk of creating weapons of mass destruction.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said as far back as 2019 that “machines with the power and discretion to take lives without human involvement are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be prohibited by international law.”
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