Trae (Trey) Stephens

But if we're kind of lulled into complacency by the false narrative of stability, global stability, then we're not going to feel much of an incentive to move in that direction anytime soon.

So I think it just really depends.

You know, the humanoid robotics, I think, are kind of the thing that comes up most when people think about the autonomous battlefield.

It's like, are you going to have a bunch of Tesla Optimus robots running around with firearms shooting at each other?

Like, I don't know, maybe on some timeline there could be something like that that's happening.

But in the near term, I think it's like assisted by humans operating in theater, in the field with robots and support.

Gotcha.

I mean, look, humans make a lot of bad decisions.

Yes, they do.

Like a super immature 18-year-old with six months of training is not necessarily going to make better decisions than a robot from an ethics perspective.

And so, of course, I want these things to be conducted in the most just way possible.

But humans make this, they make bad decisions as well.

Do I think that there's some imminent threat, like existential threat of, you know, AI destroying human civilization?

No, I don't, I don't think that's, that's really on the near term horizon.

Yeah, you know, the airspace is probably the most interesting kind of foreshadowing of future conflict because the Russians are doing a really good job of denying GPS and messing with communications signals.

So you've seen like crazy tactics like the use of fiber optic cables to drones.

I don't know if you've seen any of this.

Yeah, they're literally drones towing a mile of fiber optic cable so that they're wired and they can't be interfered with by the electronic warfare stuff.

So there's a lot of back and forth, trying to keep ahead of your opponent in how you're approaching airspace.

And I think that will be a huge part of getting this right in the future is that we need our aircraft to have the ability to operate without comms connections.