Taking their cues from modern warfare, the far-right American terrorist movement sees off-the-shelf or home-built first-person viewer (FPV) drones as a critical weapon in their own future war against the US government, which has American authorities on edge.
And there’s ample reasons for those fears: in the open and closed online spaces where far-right extremists congregate, talk is commonplace of how these cheap drones are revolutionizing current wars and will be the critical tools of a so-called second civil war.
“The use of FPV drones in the war between Russia and Ukraine, the use of drones by terrorist groups such as ISIS, and the use of drones by violent criminal groups, such as drug cartels, give examples that domestic extremists may seek to emulate or learn from,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a professional analyst who has tracked far-right extremists of every ilk, for close to a decade.
“Groups or individuals could potentially use commercial or home-made drones for reconnaissance purposes or in an offensive capacity.”
I’m not sure why you put AI in scare quotes — image recognition is a form of AI, and one that predates any LLM or generative technology. OCR A was invented in 1966.
Because it’s an overused term that I’m tired of seeing everywhere. Machine learning, image recognition are both nicer and more specific.
edit: my problem is that whenever someone says “AI”, without much other context, you have no idea if you’re talking to someone who actually knows a thing or two or the biggest moronic llm investor on the planet. Being more specific shows that you’re not the latter.
This also grinds my gears. Calling everything related to machine learning or LLMs “AI” is fully part of the grift. It’s important to make the distinction.