Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says human operators need to have ‘meaningful control’ of AI drones in warfare

Former Google CEO and White Stork defense startup founder Eric Schmidt say AI drones are the future of war.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says AI drones are the future of warfare but that human operators will need to ensure they don’t go haywire.

Schmidt was Google’s CEO from 2001 to 2011. He is now the founder of an AI drone startup called White Stork, which has provided Ukraine with drones to use in its war with Russia. At a Stanford lecture in August, Schmidt said that the war in Ukraine had turned him into a “licensed arms dealer.” Schmidt said at the Stanford lecture that the startup’s goal is to use AI “in complicated, powerful ways.”

Schmidt’s White Stork and Palmer Luckey’s Anduril are at the forefront of developing autonomous drones for the US military.

Schmidt has said he imagines a future where humans are far from the front line of conflicts, operating from afar machines that do the actual fighting. Speaking to PBS on Friday, Schmidt said that using armed men on the battlefield is an “antiquated method of war.”

“The correct model, and obviously war is horrific, is to have the people well behind and have the weapons well up front, and have them networked and controlled by AI,” Schmidt said. “The future of war is AI, networked drones of many different kinds.”

At a tech conference in Saudi Arabia in October, Schmidt called tanks “useless” and said a $5,000 drone could destroy a $5 million American tank.

Schmidt said it’s more important that the United States maintains the “human in the loop” rule for AI drones, meaning that a person will have “meaningful human control” of drones on the battlefield.

“What will happen is that the computer will produce the battle plan and the human will authorize it, thereby giving the legitimacy of both authorizing it as a human but also the legitimacy of control and liability if they make a mistake,” Schmidt said.

Having a human operator is key to preventing a “Dr. Strangelove situation,” Schmidt said, where “you have an automatic weapon which makes the decision on its own.”

“That would be terrible,” he said.

Scott Sacknoff, president of aerospace and defense investment firm Spade Index, previously told B-17 that autonomous drones in warfare are “definitely a trend.”

“Every 20 years, the defense sector sort of goes through a cycle where here are the new technologies that will have a greater impact on defense and military,” he said.

Sacknoff said the military defense business is always looking for a “counter” to the newest technology and that the growth of autonomous drones would likely bring more innovations to stop them.