Kwon Yeongin's Problematic Europe: Russia Crosses the Line with Autonomous AI Attacks... Is the DMZ at Risk?

00:00 Intro
00:23 AI Begins Autonomous Attacks
03:06 Ukraine's Drone Technology Is No Less Advanced
04:10 Is the DMZ No Longer Safe?

This is Paris. Today (August 27), we are going to talk about drones. Claims have emerged that Russia has used lethal AI drones. It is reported that without human intervention, the drones independently completed the final attack. When I first heard this news, it felt chilling—like opening a Pandora's box that should never be opened.

1. AI Begins Autonomous Attacks
On the 6th of this month, Russia attacked Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine using drones. They struck a large propane storage facility at a gas station, causing a massive explosion that tragically killed three civilians. Russia sometimes launches hundreds of drones a day, so people initially thought it was just one of those standard drones. However, when the wreckage was recovered and analyzed, it turned out to be vastly different from existing drones. What made it different? First of all, this Russian drone lacked a communication antenna. Drones are supposed to have an antenna to receive instructions and commands from humans. Yet, this drone had none at all. It wasn't that it fell off; it appeared to have been manufactured without a communication antenna from the very beginning. Instead, an ultra-small NVIDIA computer was found inside. It was a Jetson Orin. When I looked into what this Jetson Orin is, I found out it is a small computer made by placing an NVIDIA GPU on a board slightly smaller than the palm of a hand, allowing it to operate independently without connecting to a cloud server. NVIDIA stated that it has never sold these to Russia. Their stance is that it was likely resold or re-resold. However, because Russia did not set a password on this computer, analysts were able to look inside. Inside, they found regional images of Ukraine as well as embedded code. The code contained not only Ukrainian terrain data but also pre-trained data designed to track and strike specific objects. In other words, if Ukraine's claims are true, Russia trained the drones to fly autonomously to pre-programmed locations without human pilot control, allowing the AI to select targets from pre-learned options and carry out attacks. Since the target learned in this attack was an energy storage facility, the drone flew around the sky, picked one out, and struck it on its own. Truly, the era in which AI launches attacks on its own has arrived. AI has certainly been used in operating drones up until now. However, it played an auxiliary role in finding targets and carrying out operations, without independently setting targets and attacking in actual combat. In particular, there has been no previous case where a lethal AI attack resulted in casualties like this. Until now, the selection of the final target and the final order to attack were made by humans. But now, an era has somehow arrived where machines make autonomous judgments and attack humans without human involvement.

2. Ukraine's Drone Technology Is No Less Advanced
Ukraine is by no means lagging behind Russia in drone technology. It is no exaggeration to say that they have overcome an absolute inferiority in military power by fighting a four-year war with drones. At Ukraine's Independence Day military parade held last week, instead of soldiers and conventional weapons, various drones such as unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and uncrewed surface vessels were showcased. In 2024, the world's first drone-dedicated military branch was even established in Ukraine. If Ukraine sets its mind to it, they can manufacture lethal AI drones without human intervention just as easily. If a situation arises where Ukraine and Russia engage in drone warfare against each other, a war currently lingering at the remote-controlled drone combat stage could shift much faster into battles fought between autonomous drones controlled by AI, bypassing the autonomous combat system phase. In short, a scenario where robots fight on behalf of humans—or even robots killing humans—as seen in futuristic movies could soon become reality.

3. Is the DMZ No Longer Safe?
Because of this, discussions on regulation have been underway at the UN and international community levels for a long time to prevent it. There is an agreement known as the CCW, the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons. Regulations on lethal AI are being discussed here, which is a treaty aimed at limiting the use of conventional weapons that cause indiscriminate civilian casualties. Although lethal AI systems are not conventional weapons, because the potential for civilian casualties is extremely high, efforts were made to restrict the use of lethal AI weapons through this treaty. However, many countries did not agree. Russia's opposition was particularly fierce. Since then, international discussions have continued to ban the use of lethal AI weapons targeting humans. Yet, they have repeatedly run into Russian opposition. In 2024 as well, a similar agenda was brought before the UN General Assembly. It proposed creating a platform to discuss killer robot proposals, and 161 countries voted in favor, but Russia opposed it once again. North Korea also cast a dissenting vote. North Korea opposed it, several countries abstained, and major military powers such as the United States, China, India, and Israel all abstained. South Korea also maintained a reserved stance. Facing North Korea across the border, South Korea is in a position where DMZ guard duties must gradually transition from humans to robots, making it impossible to blindly agree to opposition against the development of autonomous lethal weapons. The UN Secretary-General has long strongly argued for the need to regulate the development of lethal autonomous weapons. Furthermore, he has warned that there is little time left to prepare preventive measures. Understandably so, because people have already been killed by lethal AI drones in Ukraine. In November, the CCW conference will be held again in Geneva, Switzerland. There are plans to discuss how to regulate lethal autonomous weapons and whether to create a treaty. The problem, however, is that this body operates on a consensus system, making it rather difficult to reach a binding agreement while Russia openly objects. Moreover, even if an agreement is painstakingly reached, another issue is that existing drones can easily be converted into lethal autonomous weapons through simple software updates. Ultimately, this trend toward wars fought by AI robots replacing humans—much like how nuclear weapons could not be stopped—appears difficult to avoid. Nevertheless, fierce debates are expected to erupt every time victims of lethal AI weapons occur, centered around whether or not to leave the final choice of pulling the trigger to machines.

(Reported by Kwon Yeongin, Produced by Shin Hee-suk, Video Reporting by Kim Si-nae, Video Editing by Ahn Jun-hyeok, Design by Lee Su-min, Source: Telegram '@mod_russia', Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.