Air Force Denies AI Drone Killed Its Operator

Last week, a U.S. Air Force colonel addressed a military technology summit in the U.K. and said that during a training exercise, an AI drone turned on its operator and “killed” him in the simulation. When the remote operator told the drone not to attack a designated target, it disobeyed and actually attempted to attack the control tower. Again, this was not even a real operation – just a simulation. But the comments caused quite a stir about the potential dangers of AI-operated weapons and military tech, and now the Air Force is trying to play cleanup. As reported by Fox News: “The U.S. Air Force on Friday is pushing back on comments an official made last week in which he claimed that a simulation of an artificial intelligence-enabled drone tasked with destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites turned against and attacked its human user, saying the remarks “were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal.”