"Drone WMDs Don’t Need Any New Technology" by Felix Choussat cover art

"Drone WMDs Don’t Need Any New Technology" by Felix Choussat

"Drone WMDs Don’t Need Any New Technology" by Felix Choussat

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This is a piece originally written for a national security audience at Frontiers. Although I think the ceiling of war is much, much higher than autopilot quadcopters, it's also important to understand how much AI is already lifting the floor, and just how vulnerable the world is to accessible weapons of mass destruction.




Drones are cheap, disposable, and the future of war. Over the past four years, we have seen platforms, missiles, and heavy infantry become increasingly obsolete in the face of $500 drones carrying a pack of explosives—a cost advantage that has let Iranians and Ukrainians alike neuter the conventional capabilities of their great power rivals. Eighty percent of casualties in the bloodiest war since 1945 are from drone strikes, Russia has managed to lose one-third of its fleet to a country without a navy, and the US is spending millions of dollars to intercept five-figure Shaheds flying over the Strait of Hormuz.

All this is the result of a technology that is still immature. The violence inflicted by today's drones is the handiwork of the scant few that manage to evade countermeasures (a mix of radio jamming, high-power microwave weapons, missiles, automatic cannons, interceptor [...]



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Outline:

(02:59) Breaking the Last Barriers to Autonomous Weapons

[... 5 more sections]

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First published:
July 20th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bGoo3NWzMAzsLQceJ/drone-wmds-don-t-need-any-new-technology

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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