Swarms of low-cost drones powered by AI — perhaps hundreds of them at the same time — could soon pose an existential threat to America's hulking war machinery.
Advanced militaries can largely fend off individual drones. But swarms of them deployed on a single target have the potential to reshape the global balance of power.
Expensive aircraft carriers or stealth bombers, which require massive time commitments to develop and build, will become vulnerable to drones that almost every military and armed group can access.
The Shahed-model drone that killed three U.S. service members at a remote base in Jordan on Jan. 28 cost around $20,000. It was part of a family of drones built by Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center, an Iranian company run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
For the cost of one aircraft carrier ($13 billion) an military could purchase 650,000 Shahed drones.
It would only take a few of those drones finding their target to cripple and perhaps sink the Ford. Fortunately, the Ford and other U.S. warships possess ample missile defense systems that make it highly improbable that a few, or even a few dozen, Shahed drones could land direct hits. But rapid developments in AI are changing that.
Much like the nuclear arms race of the last century, the AI arms race will define this current one. Whoever wins will possess a profound military advantage. Make no mistake, if placed in authoritarian hands, AI dominance will become a tool of conquest, just as Alexander expanded his empire with the new weapons and tactics of his age. The ancient historian Plutarch reminds us how that campaign ended: “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”
