Ukraine's AI ears

Hello, it’s Mark in London. Imagine a drone equipped with enough sensors and intelligence to identify a person by the sound of their voice. [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( [by Mark Bergen]( Hello, it’s Mark in London. Imagine a drone equipped with enough sensors and intelligence to identify a person by the sound of their voice. And then imagine that drone attacks. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Microsoft’s Xbox unit unveiled [plans for popular game sequels]( • Hong Kong’s $8 billion fund is [preparing to pour money into AI]( • Perplexity’s AI news summarizer [accused of plagiarism]( Modern warfare Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s deputy tech minister, laid out the above scenario last week at [a NATO event]( in Poland, detailing how a military drone could take out a Russian “war criminal” with a targeted assassination. It was an unsettling advancement to weaponized drones, which the deputy minister added was only in the “prototyping” phase inside Ukraine. But much of the artificial intelligence needed for it exists now. “Computer vision works,” he said. “It’s already proven.” The idea would take advantage of one of Ukraine's warfare innovations. The country has installed [thousands of mobile phones](, on cell towers and gas stations, to act as its digital ears. Data from these sensors are paired with a neural network to create artificial intelligence tools that Bornyakov said can track enemy drones or hear when Russia fires off rockets. However, giving computers potential control over lethal decisions, like the system Bornyakov described, is controversial among Ukraine's allies. He was speaking at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization forum in Krakow, organized to announce a new partnership with Ukraine and to showcase the nation’s rapid deployment of wartime drones, software and other equipment. NATO has an ethical framework for AI and seeks to ensure reasonable human input in any lethal use of force. David van Weel, a NATO assistant secretary general, said one way the organization uses AI is in reading satellite footage to count Russian aircraft and fueling stations. “It’s low-risk,” he said. “Nobody gets killed if you get the number off.” There are calls for those principles to be codified into [legally-binding rules](, including by the United Nations. “Non-binding principles and declarations, and ad hoc policy measures, are not sufficient to address the significant challenges which autonomous weapons pose,” the organization Stop Killer Robots said to Bloomberg. A NATO representative said the alliance plans to share revisions of its AI strategy at its July summit. Still, it was hard to get away from the theme of autonomy at the Krakow gathering. “Definitely AI is one of the top priorities for Ukraine,” said Nataliia Kushnerska, chief operating officer for Brave1, a government-backed initiative to help the private sector and military work together on defense tech. At a media briefing with Bornyakov and Pentagon officials, Kushnerska outlined some of the AI features Ukraine’s military already uses. monitor Russian media and propaganda, which increasingly [use generative AI]( to produce content. (Bornyakov later said he couldn’t specify whose models Ukraine uses.) There’s also Griselda, a software program [launched last year]( that sifts through data from satellites, social media and “even hacked enemy databases,” [according to]( the Ukrainian government. Two years after invading Ukraine, Russia has proven that it too can wield electronic warfare, particularly with [GPS jamming](. But Bornyakov called Ukraine’s acoustic sensor network a distinct advantage. “They don’t have this,” he said. He added that island nations like Cyprus and Taiwan, more exposed to potential attacks, might be interested in such a sensor network. NATO has thrown more resources behind Ukraine, without declaring war on Russia. The alliance's new tech fund just invested in a startup shipping [military robots]( to Ukraine. Ukraine has been talking AI for some time. It’s used data-crunching from Palantir Technologies Inc. for battlefield decision-making and [reconstruction work](. But Ukrainian officials have also criticized some AI wonders promised by tech vendors as “R&D projects,” more hype than impact. Another problem is the reality on the ground. Oleksandr Chendekov, co-founder of FoxFour, one of several Ukrainian startups at NATO's event, said disruptions to internet networks make using even services like ChatGPT impossible. “On the frontline, we have no cloud,” he said. “We have no communications.” Companies building tech for the battlefield don’t necessarily have the AI secret sauce either. The most valuable information for this, like video footage taken from drones, is treated as classified and not shared with local startups, according to Chendekov. Officials and companies in the country have had ongoing talks about changing that, he said, but “it remains a challenge.”—[Mark Bergen](mailto:mbergen10@bloomberg.net) The big story Meta Platforms Inc. and other social media companies won the dismissal of novel claims in hundreds of lawsuits brought by school districts seeking to recover costs for [addressing the negative impacts of students’ social media use.]( One to watch Apple will introduce a new homegrown app next week called Passwords, aiming to make it easier for customers to log in to websites and software, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman joins Ed Ludlow and Caroline Hyde to discuss that and the company's upcoming WWDC event on "Bloomberg Technology." 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