China Exporting Killer Autonomous Drones To Middle East: Should You Be Scared?

According to the latest report, China is exporting harmful and destructive drones to the Middle East. These drones are capable of harming people as per the command sent by the operator. The information is announced by Mark Esper, the United States secretary of defence.

As per the report Patrick Tucker at defence One, this is the first time when a senior Defense official has recognized that China is selling drones which are equipped for killing people with practically zero human oversight.

"As we speak, the Chinese government is already exporting some of its most advanced military aerial drones to the Middle East, as it prepares to export its next-generation stealth UAVs when those come online," Asia Times quoted Esper as saying at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence conference in Washington, D.C.

"In addition, Chinese weapons manufacturers are selling drones advertised as capable of full autonomy, including the ability to conduct lethal targeted strikes."

A Chinese organization Ziyan, is advertising the Blowfish A3, which is a helicopter drone equipped with an automatic machine gun. " It autonomously performs more complex combat missions, including fixed-point timing detection, fixed-range reconnaissance, and targeted precision strikes," says Ziyan the Chinese aerial vehicle company.

Back in February this year Greg Allen, the chief of strategy and communications at the Defense Department's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center mentioned in the paper for CNAS that the Chinese company Ziyan is working out on deals to sell its Blowfish A2 drones to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

A year ago, Zeng Yi, a senior official at NORINCO, China's third-biggest defence company predicted that in future there will be no human fighting on the battlegrounds. The battlegrounds will be taken over by machine and drones as early as 2025.

Esper said it was "equally troubling are the outside firms or multinational corporations that are inadvertently or tacitly providing the technology or research behind China's unethical use of AI."

It seems Esper is ringing all the warning bells with industry and allies about the intention of China to promote advanced technology like AI and 5G enabled autonomy weapons.