AI Drones Kill 3 Ukrainian Civilians Using Nvidia Jetson Orin in Autonomous Strike

Some of Russia's A.I. Drones Are Powered by Nvidia Microcomputers, Ukrainian Officials Say

The tech giant says it does not sell the devices in Russia, but they are widely available on resale markets. When purchased that way, they are virtually impossible to track. The miniature Nvidia computer that Ukrainian officials say Russia has used in fully autonomous A.I.-guided drones is an inexpensive model designed for civilian robotics and machine vision applications, according to the company. Ukrainian forensic examiners recently found the minicomputer, the Nvidia Jetson Orin, in the wreckage of drones launched by Russia's military in apparent tests of a self-targeting system in the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine. Ukraine's domestic intelligence agency showed New York Times reporters two such guidance systems that included damaged but still recognizable Jetson computer components. Air defense officials said that a drone with one of the systems killed three people in an attack in Zaporizhzhia on July 6. The Russian weapon is a new step in the use of A.I. in combat. Earlier A.I.-guided drones had a "human in the loop" safety button that required a live pilot to confirm a target. Those systems used artificial intelligence only in the last several hundred yards of a drone's flight to help make them impervious to radio signal jamming. The Russian drones tested in Zaporizhzhia from May to July, by contrast, left the strike decision entirely to the Jetson Orin computer, according to an analysis of the chip by Ukrainian investigators. The Red Cross and other rights groups have opposed allowing computers to find and strike targets on their own. Ukrainian air defense officials and forensic specialists who examined debris from the drones said that the Jetson computers had been trained to identify a range of potential targets. Those included gas stations, which have been a focus of Russian attacks in recent months. The drone that killed three people on July 6 was flying toward a gas station. Ukraine's defense intelligence agency said this month that an Nvidia Jetson computer had also been found on a new type of Russian missile, called the S-71M Monochrome, that was being tested in attacks on Ukraine. The Nvidia system may have been used for A.I. guidance, the agency said. In a statement, Nvidia said that the Jetson Orin computers found in the Russian drones were "consumer-grade products sold to students, developers and start-ups for a wide range of beneficial applications." They were not designed for military applications, the company added. The U.S. government restricts exports of items to Russia for military use. Nvidia said that the Jetson line of computers was not sold in Russia but was available in resale markets. The company has said that it cannot track such secondary sales. The circuit board on which the Nvidia chip was installed was stamped "Made in China." It was unclear how Russia's military obtained the computers. Nvidia, the world's most valuable company by market capitalization, calls the line of Jetson minicomputers "the world's most powerful embedded A.I. computers." The devices run applications that are trained on large volumes of data rather than explicitly programmed by a human. As an example of possible uses, Nvidia cited a Japanese manufacturer, Musashi, that trained the Jetson computer to identify defects in welding and other areas on vehicle gearboxes. The computers replaced human inspectors, whose work Nvidia called "repetitive, stressful and not very engaging."

Fully AI-Guided Russian Drones Have Reportedly Killed Ukrainian Civilians

An entirely AI-led Russian drone operated by Nvidia technology killed three civilians last month in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, according to new reporting from the New York Times. The attack took place on July 6th, with the Russian drone initially targeting propane tanks at a gas station before crashing into a wall and exploding before reaching its target, thus killing three civilians: 19-year-old college student Tetiana Bubynets, 41-year-old Oleksiy Svirin, and 48-year-old Roman Karpiy. Though the war has claimed the lives of thousands of Ukrainian civilians in the last four years, the death of Bubynets, Svirin, and Karpiy could be the first reported instance in the war between Russia and Ukraine in which civilians were killed at the hands of a completely AI-driven system. Both Ukraine and Russia have used artificial intelligence technology so much in airstrikes that the battlefield has often been referred to as a real-time testing ground for AI-assisted warfare. The Russian drone responsible for the attack last month was an experimental AI system, several experts cited by the NYT say, which was different than systems used before, as the final strike decision was not made by a human commander but by the AI system itself. Artificial intelligence is increasingly entering and solidifying its place in global warfare, maximizing lethality on the battlefield and deeply alarming humanitarian organizations. The greater fear lies with systems that cut humans out of the final decision-making process. Fully autonomous missiles and drones can select targets based on their training data. Some argue that AI can make military strikes more precise, while others contend that the technology remains far too error-prone for decisions about who lives and who dies. These systems are also notoriously opaque, making it difficult to assign moral and legal responsibility when something goes catastrophically wrong. Humanitarian organizations fear AI systems will accelerate casualties, regardless of error rates. "Our concerns are not limited to the errors that may result from such systems malfunctioning but encompass how these systems fundamentally transform military operations," Amnesty International and Access Now said in a recent joint statement asking governments and tech companies to stop the proliferation of AI military systems. "We are profoundly concerned that the use of LLMs for target generation and prioritization is pushing military actors into a form of warfare where foundational principles of international humanitarian law -including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution- are not, and arguably cannot be, sufficiently respected, given the sheer speed and scale of such technologies, in addition to the unreliable, biased, and often illegally obtained input data." The Russian attack marks a chilling shift in the nature of warfare. Russia isn't alone in its plans to incorporate so-called self-targeting AI systems; the former Ukrainian defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov said that Ukraine has tested such systems recently in Crimea too, though with no civilian casualties. Israel's attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, which amount to a genocide per a UN Commission, have often been referred to as an "AI Human Laboratory," where AI weapons of the future are tested on real human beings. And earlier this year, the Department of Defense under the Trump administration had a very public fallout with Anthropic, allegedly after the latter refused to let its AI systems be used in fully autonomous weapons that cut humans out of final target selection, presumably in the United States' recent attacks on Iran. Russian authorities haven't publicly acknowledged the incident, but local Ukrainian officials were able to figure out its fully autonomous nature when they fished out an Nvidia computer from the debris left behind by the drone. The American tech giant later identified the minicomputer as its Jetson Orin modules, which are not sold in Russia but could have been acquired through resellers. The New York Times reports that the circuit board carrying the Nvidia chip had a "Made in China" stamp. Nvidia claims its Jetson minicomputers are "not designed for military purposes." "Our Jetson Orin modules are consumer-grade products sold to students, developers, and startups for a wide range of beneficial applications," an Nvidia spokesperson told Gizmodo. "Although we cannot track products after they are sold, if we determine that any customer is violating U.S. export controls, we will take appropriate action."

Killer drone guided by AI slaughters 3 Ukrainians, sparking grave fears: 'Living in a 'Terminator' movie'

Three Ukrainian civilians were slaughtered by Russian drones that were guided by artificial intelligence, marking an ominous escalation in warfare's robotic age. Tetiana Bubynets, 19, a university student, and two others were blown to bits last month at a gas station in the city of Zaporizhzhia by a drone outfitted with an experimental artificial intelligence system that decides, without a human operator, where to strike, the New York Times reported. The drone, which looked like a model airplane, was programmed to fly towards the gas station, but once it closed in, an AI system autonomously chose its target -- most likely propane tanks -- based on its training to recognize such objects, experts and military officials told the paper. "This is a risk for the whole world," said Col. Serhiy Minaiev, the commander of Ukrainian air defenses in Zaporizhzhia. "In a few years, we will be living in a 'Terminator' movie. It's no joke. Machines are making decisions to strike." Debris recovered from the gas station and other strike sites around the city revealed that the drones were running on Nvidia minicomputers that determined where the drone would detonate, officials and experts said. Nvidia produces the majority of the chips powering the world's most advanced AI systems and confirmed that the module found in the drone was a Jetson Orin minicomputer, a low-cost system that has been found on other Russian weapons, according to The Times. Nvidia described the system as a consumer-grade product available for students, developers and start-ups "for a wide range of beneficial applications." Nvidia sells the computer in several countries but not in Russia -- although it's widely available through resellers. The July 6 gas station attack would be the first documented case in which self-targeting AI Russian drones caused civilian deaths, Kateryna Bondar, a senior fellow at the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The presence of an Nvidia module "is the best proof" that Russia has been experimenting with autonomous AI on the battlefield, she said.