01 November 2024

At the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia on October 30, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt urged the United States military to replace its fleets of "useless" tanks with AI-powered drones.

“Give them away," said Schmidt, who founded a startup manufacturing autonomous kamikaze drones for Ukraine. "Buy a drone instead. The Ukraine-Russia war has demonstrated how a $5,000 drone can destroy a $5 million tank.”

Schmidt resigned his board position at Alphabet Inc.—Google's parent company—in 2019, and, from 2016-2020, advised U.S. defense leaders on emerging technologies. In 2021, when in the top spot at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, he passed recommendations to Congress on how to best use AI for national security.

“The cost of autonomy is falling so quickly that the drone war—which is the future of conflict—will get rid of tanks, artillery, and mortars,” added Schmidt.

However, Schmidt believes the West will be slow to adapt to rapid and radical changes on the battlefield.

"Organizational and political structures are not changing [in America]," he maintained, "so the system is precisely wrong for a drone-warfare scenario."