Eric Schmidt: US Army should swap tanks for AI drones • The Register

Nov 03, 2024

Former Google chief Eric Schmidt thinks the US Army should expunge "useless" tanks and replace them with AI-powered drones instead.

Speaking at the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia this week, he said: "I read somewhere that the US had thousands and thousands of tanks stored somewhere," adding, "Give them away. Buy a drone instead."

Did we mention that Schmidt is the founder of a startup called White Stork that aims to develop AI-driven attack drones?

The former Google supremo's argument is that recent conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, have demonstrated how "a $5,000 drone can destroy a $5 million tank."

In fact, even cheaper drones, similar to those commercially available for consumers, have been shown in footage on social media dropping grenades through the open turret hatch of tanks.

Schmidt, who was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, then executive chairman to 2015, and executive chairman of Alphabet to 2018, founded White Stork with the aim of supporting Ukraine's war effort. It hopes to achieve this by developing a low-cost drone that can use AI to acquire its target rather than being guided by an operator and can function in environments where GPS jamming is in operation.

Notably, Schmidt also served as chair of the US government's National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), which advised the President and Congress about national security and defense issues with regard to AI.

"The cost of autonomy is falling so quickly that the drone war, which is the future of conflict, will get rid of eventually tanks, artillery, mortars," Schmidt predicted.

Questions were being raised about the viability of modern battle tanks before the Ukraine war started, and with the Russian armed forces losing an estimated 3,000 in the first 24 months of the fighting, some military experts think the era of tank warfare is over.

However, both Russia and Ukraine have yet to ditch their tanks, with the latter country continuing to ask for Western hardware to help in its fight. The UK is also spending £800 million (about $1 billion) to upgrade its aging Challenger 2 battle tanks to Challenger 3, which comes with a completely new turret and gun, among other enhancements.

Many modern tanks also sport active protection systems (APS) such as Trophy, which can detect incoming threats and typically launch explosive projectiles to intercept them before they reach the tank. Various other potential countermeasures are said to be in development, including laser dazzlers to blind the drone's sensors.

One military expert who spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Register: "Rumours about the main battle tank, heavy artillery, and infantry combat vehicles no longer having roles on the modern battlefield have been greatly exaggerated.

"Warfare, armies, change over time, new technologies arrive, others leave - horses no longer are frontline war-fighting assets. 'Drones' have shown greater utility than many had given them credit for before the Ukraine War, but they haven't shown themselves to be the absolute game changer that some had forecast. Sensible armies will opt for balance, and that balance will have both drones and tanks."

Despite what Schmidt suggests, the US Army isn't expected to mothball its thousands of M1 Abrams in favor of drones just yet. Instead - as our expert points out - it is likely to consider deploying both when called upon at some point. ®

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