A Libyan armed group has been shot by a drone, without receiving any order from the human being, autonomously, for the first time in the history of the country. The incident occurred in 2020, but a group of experts in the investigation of the Libyan war have sent the information to the Security Council on 8 March. As mentioned in the report, this technology was used in an attack organized by the Turkish Army against the troops of the military chief in eastern Libya, Khalifa Haftar. As Haftar forces retired, drones in the STM Office-2 model “hunted and shot logistic convoys.”

This is the first time that a drone has attacked human beings without a restraining order, although the authorities have not yet determined whether there have been any casualties or injuries. The UN report points out that it is responsible for the attack on the drones of the Cargo Model 2 of the Turkish company STM. According to the manufacturer, this technology is included in the Turkish Army's inventory and is used to "detect and eliminate threats in the area" in operations against terrorists.

Cargo 2 models are seven-kilogram devices that can fly for half an hour at a speed of 145 km/h. Like other drones of this kind, they use artificial intelligence (AI) to act: by studying the images, they select the destinations they must attack and launch projectiles against them.

Prohibitions

The UN has been making efforts since 2013 to ban the use of weapons using this technology in the United States. On the other hand, in 2015, thousands of ai experts -- like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawkin-- signed a letter calling for these kinds of robots to be banned. Nothing has yet been achieved.