Latest news with #autonomousWeapons
CBS News
18-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Tech billionaire Palmer Luckey wants to remake the U.S. military with autonomous weapons
Palmer Luckey on making autonomous weapons for the U.S. and its allies | 60 Minutes People thought flip flop- and Hawaiian shirt-wearing tech billionaire Palmer Luckey, 32, was nuts when he launched defense products startup Anduril Industries. There hadn't been a new company in the defense industry in any significant way since the end of the Cold War, but Luckey had his own vision for the future of warfare: one with autonomous, AI-powered weapons and a different business model than the five "prime" defense contractors in the U.S. "I've always said that we need to transition from being the world police to being the world gun store," he said. Who is Palmer Luckey? Luckey made his billions young. He grew up fascinated by electronics and spent a lot of time tinkering in his parents' Long Beach, California, garage. By age 19, that tinkering turned into virtual reality company Oculus. Luckey sold it to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, but was fired by Facebook two years later. Palmer Luckey 60 Minutes "Everyone's got a different story, but it boils down to I gave $9,000 to a political group that was for Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton," Luckey said. "To be a Trump supporter in 2016, you know, this was at the height of the election insanity and derangement in Silicon Valley. And so I think that a lot of people thought back then that you could just fire a Trump supporter." Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who attended President Trump's most recent inauguration, has denied that Luckey was fired for his political views. In 2017, Luckey says he left Silicon Valley, with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank and a chip on his shoulder. "My gears were ground," he said. "I really wanted to prove that I was somebody, that I was not a one-hit wonder, and that I still had it in me to do big things." Luckey says he thought about starting companies to combat obesity or fix the prison system, but ultimately decided to break into the defense industry. "Everyone in the military has seen 'James Bond' movies and they all like Q," Luckey said. "I'm the wacky gadget man. I'm the guy who types on the computer and pushes up my glasses, and then gives them a strange thing to help them accomplish their mission." What Luckey sees as the future of warfare For decades, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman have dominated the defense industry. Typically, the companies present an idea to the Pentagon. If the Pentagon buys it, the government pays for the company to develop it, even if it goes over budget or over schedule. Luckey started Anduril to flip that procurement structure on its head. "The idea behind Anduril was to build not a defense contractor, but a defense products company," he said. The difference, he explains, is that contractors are paid to do the work whether or not it succeeds. "A products company has a very different mentality. You're putting in your own money. You're putting in your own time," Luckey said. His vision was to show up with a working product, not with a presentation describing how taxpayers would foot his bills for developing a product. Palmer Luckey and Sharyn Alfonsi 60 Minutes Luckey argues a lack of innovation in the defense sector means a Tesla has better AI than any U.S. aircraft and a Roomba vacuum has better autonomy than most of the Pentagon's weapons systems. He wants to change that. Part of Luckey's philosophy is that autonomous weapons ultimately promote peace by scaring adversaries away. "My position has been that the United States needs to arm our allies and partners around the world so that they can be prickly porcupines that nobody wants to step on, nobody wants to bite them," he said. Luckey does not believe the U.S. should be sending its military to other countries. Instead, he says, American-made products should go overseas. "I think that that's one of the reasons that autonomy is so powerful. Right now there are so many weapon systems that require manning," he said. "You know, if I can have one guy command and controlling 100 aircraft, that's a lot easier than having to have a pilot in every single one. And it puts a lot fewer American lives at risk." "Autonomy" does not mean remote controlled; once an autonomous weapon is programmed and given a task, it can use artificial intelligence for surveillance or to identify, select and engage targets. No operator needed. What Anduril is making Luckey's approach seems to be working for Anduril. The company says it will have secured more than $6 billion in government contracts worldwide by the end of the year. Some of Anduril's systems are already being used by the U.S. military and in the war in Ukraine. Right now, Anduril is working on the Roadrunner: a twin turbo-jet powered drone interceptor that can take off, identify and strike a drone. If it doesn't find a target, it can land and try again. Anduril also makes headsets that allow soldiers to see 360 degrees in combat. And there's an electromagnetic warfare system that can be programmed to jam enemy systems, knocking out drone swarms. The weapons can be synchronized on Anduril's AI platform, Lattice, Luckey said. The platform collects data from various sensors and sources — including satellites, drones, radar and cameras — allowing the AI to analyze, move assets and execute missions faster than a human. "It's the AI onboard all these weapons that makes it possible to make it so easy," he said. The largest weapon in Anduril's arsenal, a submarine called the Dive XL, works autonomously. A version 60 Minutes saw is the size of a school bus. "It's not remote-controlled by this computer," Luckey said. "It's doing it on the brain, on the submarine itself. So if I told it to go off and perform some mission that's monthslong, like, 'Go to this target, listen for this particular signature, and if you see this signature, run; if you see this one, hide; if you see this one, follow it,' it could do that all on its own without being detected, without communicating with it." Anduril says the Dive XL can travel 1,000 miles fully submerged. Australia has invested $58 million in the subs to help defend its seas from China. Fury 60 Minutes Anduril's most anticipated weapon, an unmanned fighter jet called Fury, has no cockpit, stick or rudder because there's no pilot. "The idea is that you're building a robotic fighter jet that is, you know, flying with manned fighters and is doing what you ask it to do, recommending things be done, taking risks that you don't want human pilots to take," Luckey said. Fury represents a big turning point for the company. Anduril was viewed by some inside the defense industry as a "tech-bro" startup until it beat out several of the prime defense contractors to make an unmanned fighter jet for the Air Force. Fury is scheduled to take its first test flight this summer. If the Pentagon awards Anduril a production contract for Fury it, like all of the company's products, will be made in the U.S. The ethics of autonomous weapons The secretary general of the United Nations has called lethal autonomous weapons "politically unacceptable and morally repugnant." Some international groups have referred to lethal autonomous weapons as killer robots. "If I am gonna argue with them, I usually poke it," Luckey said. "I'm like, 'OK, so do you think that NATO should be armed with squirt guns or slingshots?'" Luckey notes that all of Anduril's weapons have a "kill switch" that allows a human operator to intervene if needed. And while some find the idea of autonomous weapons scary, Luckey argues they're less scary than weapons systems without any level of intelligence. "There's no moral high ground to making a land mine that can't tell the difference between a school bus full of children and Russian armor," he said. "It's not a question between smart weapons and no weapons. It's a question between smart weapons and dumb weapons." As with many AI systems, some people also worry about what happens if artificial intelligence goes rogue. "I would say that it is something to be aware of. But in the grand scheme of things, things to be afraid of, there's things that I'm much more terrified of," Luckey said. "I'm a lot more worried about evil people with mediocre advances in technology than AI deciding that it's gonna wipe us all out."
Bloomberg
09-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Silicon Valley Is Coming for the Pentagon's $1 Trillion Budget Silicon Valley Is Coming for the Pentagon's $1 Trillion Budget
Intel fordecisionmakingPalantirAndurilSaronicSaildroneShield AIHermeusEpirusSkydioReusablefighterjet thatblows updronesSecurehardwaredeviceWearablesAutonomousdroneHypersonic planeSystem thatzaps dronesBattlefielddataBattlefielddataCelltowerfeedsSatellitefeedsTitan Titan is packed with computer servers running software that gobbles up reams of information about troops, tanks and artillery in the field, integrates the data and links with satellite feeds from as far as Washington to keep tabs on the growing numbers of unmanned weapons crisscrossing the front lines. This intel is quickly distilled into usable bites, using AI to provide real-time assessments that streamline decision-making in increasingly complex combat by lead contractor Palantir Technologies Inc., the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, as the system is called in full, heralds nothing less than a revolution in how future wars are fought, and crucially: who will supply the gear to the modern soldier. The model of warfare put forward by Silicon Valley and increasingly embraced in Washington would recalibrate how assets are deployed on the battlefield. Instead of dozens or even hundreds of soldiers supporting one $100 million system, one soldier using AI software could command dozens of cheap, autonomous weapons, whether they're airborne, in space, on land or in the just a series of clicks, soldiers will be capable of dispatching autonomous weapons, surveillance drones and other advanced equipment. This approach aims to deter enemy aggression by presenting an overwhelming force, and reducing risk by putting a protective shield around soldiers and expensive systems like fighter jets and battleships. Other key players in America's high-tech defense push include Anduril Industries Inc., which is building combat drones and other autonomous weapons systems; Saronic Technologies Inc., a startup developing unmanned surface vessels; San Diego-based Shield AI, which is developing self-driving technology for aircraft and has been flying F-16s autonomously since 2022 (Bloomberg Beta has invested); and Los Angeles-based Epirus, which makes high-powered microwaves that can zap incoming enemy drones and swarms from the sky and disable boat motors. By Lizette Chapman Julia Janicki Tom Fevrier Allyson Versprille May 8, 2025 The Titan is notable in other ways. It came in on time and within budget, according to Palantir, a rarity in US defense procurement. And while the $178 million contract accounts for just a tiny sliver of an annual Defense Department allotment targeted at $1 trillion in the coming cycle, it represents an important inflection point in a long but uneven collaboration between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon. The award, over a competing bid from RTX Corp., marked the first time a software company took the lead role on a battlefield system, making Palantir the first such prime contractor to emerge since General Dynamics Corp. more than 70 years ago. Founded in 2003, Palantir has been providing intelligence software to the military for years. But the proposal for the Titan turned conventional wisdom on its head by putting software at the core of the system and wrapping the hardware around it, instead of the other way around. The company then partnered with Northrop Grumman Corp., L3Harris Technologies Inc., fellow Silicon Valley upstart Anduril and others to help produce the vehicle. With the Pentagon pouring increasing resources into startups, tech founders and the venture capitalists backing them — many with strong ties to the administration of President Donald Trump — are on a mission to disrupt the defense industry dominated by a small number of so-called prime contractors. 'It's not that we need to get rid of the primes — that's idiot's thinking,' said Steven Blank, a Stanford University professor who has long advocated for greater collaboration between Silicon Valley and the Defense Department. 'We still need them, but we need a whole new generation of AI-based and new technologies too.' For more than a decade, Palantir's co-founder and chief executive officer, Alex Karp, has led an impassioned push for Silicon Valley to take on a bigger role in US defense contracting. Karp has embraced an unrestrained narrative, arguing that tech firms have a moral obligation to contribute to defense so Western democracies can prevail over their adversaries. And he's blended his business savvy and intellectual gravitas (Karp holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Frankfurt University in Germany) with Silicon-Valley hipsterdom: His carefully disheveled attire and mad-scientist locks have helped win him a cult following among a younger, predominantly male audience keen to see their heroes shake up the status quo — be it in politics or indeed a real-world battlefield. Karp argues that the AI-infused software capabilities being developed in the US can provide an insurmountable edge by harnessing the world's best technology for the country's defense. So-called intelligence nodes made by Palantir, for example, can be deployed near the front lines, shortening the time from identifying a target and engaging with it, and extending the range of weapons made by other firms. He and like-minded founders want to shake up a military-industrial complex they see as rigid and no longer able to innovate — a viewpoint also driving decisions made by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. In Karp's view, America is ill-equipped to keep up with changes to warfare like the cheap, lethal drones that dominate the battle front in Ukraine. Roiling the status quo isn't a concern. It's exactly the point: open competition can expose what isn't working, while shuffling the power structure and making tech founders and their investors fabulously rich in the process. 'We love disruption,' Karp, who's become a billionaire, said in February. 'There'll be ups and downs — there's a revolution. Some people get their heads cut off.' That survival-of-the-fittest ethos fits right into the way Palmer Luckey has approached his latest business, Anduril. After selling virtual-reality startup Oculus to Facebook, Luckey, 32, went on to co-found Anduril, which specializes in autonomous warfare. He wants nothing less than to create a challenger to Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's largest defense contractor. In February, the company reached a deal with Microsoft Corp. to partly take over an up-to $20 billion Army contract to make augmented-vision goggles for soldiers. Luckey, who sports a flowing mullet, warns that China — already flexing its muscles in the South China Sea — is rapidly moving toward superior technologies, from hypersonic and self-guided missiles to drone swarms that can augment or someday replace manned fighter jets. 'We don't have time for business as usual,' Luckey told Bloomberg Television in January, after announcing Anduril's decision to build a $1 billion factory in Ohio to make weapons including aerial and maritime drones that use its AI-powered Lattice software. The platform was selected by the US Space Force last year for surveillance networks, and Andruil has also been working with OpenAI to bolster defense systems protecting soldiers from drone attacks. Donald Trump's return to the White House has given fresh momentum to the Defense Department's push to adopt new weaponry and broaden its supplier list, supported in no small part by Musk's DOGE, which is upending how the government is run. Musk himself publicly questioned the need for piloted fighter jets last year, calling such systems 'obsolete in the age of drones.' For the first time ever, the DoD no longer owns all the technology necessary to win a war. For the first time ever, the DoD no longer owns all the technology necessary to win a war. Stanford Professor Steven Blank Members of Trump's administration have promised to cast aside bureaucratic hurdles to change, giving upstarts an unprecedented chance to migrate from the periphery of defense contracting to its core. 'We shouldn't be fearful of productive new technologies, in fact we should seek to dominate them,' Vice President JD Vance — who as a venture capitalist invested in Anduril — told hundreds of tech founders at the American Dynamism conference hosted by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz in March. 'That is certainly what this administration wants to accomplish.' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said he'll redirect 8% of nonlethal Defense Department spending, or about $50 billion, to new areas that include innovative weaponry and Trump's Golden Dome missile defense shield. Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, the billionaire co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has vowed to go line-by-line through procurement programs, with an eye to speeding the shift toward a 'software-centric' approach to weapons acquisitions. While controversies have raised doubts about Hegseth's longevity in his post, the administration's ambitions dovetail with growing support within Washington's military and defense-planning circles for finding better ways to innovate. The effort began in earnest in 2015, when Defense Secretary Ashton Carter made a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley to foster greater collaboration with technology firms. He started the Defense Innovation Unit, the military's flagship program to speed the adoption of advanced technology, which led to other military programs to address the branches' critical, unmet technology needs. Both Republicans and Democrats have voiced support for such changes. 'To draw entrepreneurship and technology back into defense, we must start buying advanced systems from the best talent that exists today,' Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker wrote in December as he proposed an overhaul of the Pentagon's entire system for buying weapons. Military leaders have also promised to cut out bureaucratic layers standing in the way of new entrants: The Army, for example, has done away with lists of specific bid requirements for new systems, instead providing a brief outline of the capabilities it needs, according to General James Rainey, who heads the Army Futures Command. In early March, Air Force Chief of Staff David Allvin announced that two 'loyal wingman' combat drones, one being developed by Anduril and the other by defense contractor General Atomics, would be given fighter designations, a symbolic move that's 'telling the world we are leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare,' he said at a defense gathering in Colorado. 'It means collaborative combat aircraft. It means human-machine teaming. We're developing those capabilities thinking mission first.' Anduril is one of the key defense startups aiming to do just that, manufacturing a lengthening list of weapons, wearables, surveillance systems and other hardware all tied together by Lattice. Anduril and General Atomics beat out Northrop, Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin for the drone contracts, which were issued under former President Joe Biden in 2024. Collaborative combat aircraft, or CCAs, are designed to fly alongside the Next Generation Air Dominance fighters that won't be built for years, but also existing ones like Lockheed's F-35. In contested skies, they would provide a protective buffer around the manned fighter, augmenting its reach with lower-cost drones that won't have troops aboard put at risk. Prototypes are expected to be ready to fly this summer, Allvin said in March. (Later that month, Boeing was awarded the contract to build the next stealth fighter jet, dubbed the F-47, easing trad-defense concerns the president would turn away from manned warplanes altogether.) Pentagon officials didn't respond to repeated requests for specifics on its evolving plans. Anduril, meanwhile, is preparing to raise at least $2.5 billion to fund its ambitions, in a deal that would double its valuation to more than $30 billion since it last raised capital in August. Venture Capitalists Are Pouring Money Into Defense Startups Broad change is afoot within the Defense Department. In April, Trump signed an executive order aimed at increasing the use of commercially available products, speeding procurement and bolstering the defense industrial base — a move that, along with one targeting maritime investments, is seen as benefiting startups. At the same time, the Pentagon plans to cull between 50,000 and 60,000 civilian workers, primarily to shift more money toward war readiness. While creating budget space, the loss of experienced personnel is likely to add to the formidable challenge of transforming the Pentagon over a short period of time. Skeptics wonder how well the new stuff actually works, compared with battle-proven kit that's been deployed and improved for years. Skydio, for example, had to go back to the drawing board after its attack drones, built for the Army and shipped to Ukraine by the thousands, proved vulnerable to Russian anti-drone radio jamming. There are also concerns about software companies' ability to manage weapons production at scale, the ability to build a home-grown supply chain free of Chinese components, and how the new players will coexist with legacy primes. Still, it's imperative to reform the military's acquisition and budget processes to gain access to new technologies, or risk falling further behind China, said Bill Greenwalt, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on defense issues. 'Speed is now of the essence,' he said. To keep pace with other countries, 'we have to take on some risk.' Traditional defense contractors aren't willing to just cede ground to nimble upstarts. In fact, they've paid close attention, looking to harness the new entrants' advances — and the money flows — and avoid being ambushed. More than $7.1 billion in venture capital has been raised by defense-related US startups since the start of 2023, according to PitchBook, more than the prior nine years combined. VCs Placing Bigger Bets on More Defense Tech Startups Number of deals and total venture-capital funding to US-based defense tech startups Meanwhile, public investors have bestowed on Palantir a market cap greater than the most valuable prime, RTX. Rather than stonewalling to defend their turf, traditional military suppliers have often formed partnerships with tech companies to integrate the technology into their products, sometimes acquiring startups to blend old and new capabilities. 'The primes have recognized that they have to treat this moment as an opportunity,' said Katherine Boyle, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz who co-leads its American Dynamism practice. 'It's a massive R&D subsidy coming through venture capital.' Given a preference for 'co-opetition' among both Silicon Valley and traditional defense firms – where they partner on one project and compete on another – the two camps have been striking a range of deals. Palantir, through its 'Operation Warp Speed' program, is selling its software to traditional companies like L3Harris and startups including Saildrone (wind-powered uncrewed vessels that collect and process data), Anduril and Saronic, as well as publicly held Red Cat Holdings Inc. (airborne armed and reconnaissance drones), so they can improve their manufacturing processes. 'The reindustrialization of America is happening in our software,' Palantir's Karp said in an interview this week after reporting quarterly results. Lockheed Martin has active contracts with about one-third of the 130 or so startups it's backed across space, propulsion, AI, quantum technology (which can be used in navigation, detection, logistics and encryption), hypersonic systems and other areas. It acquired its first portfolio company, Terran Orbitel, for its space business last year. 'The nation needs to buy the best capability, whether it comes from a Lockheed or another prime or from a startup company,' said Chris Moran, who leads startup investing for Lockheed Martin Ventures. The goal is to augment its capabilities in fast-moving areas where Lockheed may not be focused, 'but certainly recognize that we need.' Defense Tech Firms Gain Traction But Still Dwarfed by Established Contractors US Department of Defense spending with the largest legacy defense contractors and defense tech firms in 2024 Collaboration between Silicon Valley and the Defense Department dates back at least to World War II, when US and British bombers were equipped with sensing equipment to detect and disrupt German radar installations. Those ties began to fray as the Cold War gave way to the Internet age. While US tech founders turned toward commercial opportunities, the defense sector condensed and lost vitality. The more than 50 major defense contractors that existed in 1993 has narrowed to just a handful today — Lockheed, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop, Boeing, General Dynamics and L3Harris. One byproduct of consolidation has been a dearth of innovation and gaps in the US arsenal, according to Stanford professor Blank. 'For the first time ever, the DoD no longer owns all the technology necessary to win a war,' he said. Musk's SpaceX helped paved the way for the current crop of tech-defense startups that are resurrecting ties with the Pentagon. It famously sued the Air Force in 2014 for the right to bid on satellite-launch contracts; in 2016, Palantir filed a similar lawsuit against the Army. Their gate-crashing raised confidence among VCs of the profit potential in defense. The DoD's innovation unit expanded to Boston and Austin in 2016, and has continued adding hubs to increase outreach to founders in robotics, AI, autonomy and other critical areas. One major question mark on the road to dominating the next era of warfare is the Pentagon itself, long criticized for bloated budgets and a complex, slow-moving acquisition system that scares off all but a few experienced contractors. Even when it is willing to widen its circle of suppliers, the DoD struggles with a lack of coordination and duplicate efforts that waste resources. A Feb. 27 report from the Government Accountability Office said the DIU, for example, had failed to establish and measure its progress toward clear goals. 'I expect this to be an area where the DOGE will really dig over the next couple years,' said Betsy Cooper, director of the Aspen Policy Academy. 'Whether they break some of the systems that have kept the primes in place for so long is something we'll have to watch.' One way to become more agile, according to American Enterprise Institute's Greenwalt, is to move away from big, single-source contracts that last years to awarding several companies smaller amounts and allowing them to compete. That way, the Defense Department will have more flexibility to kill a program early if the technology doesn't pan out. 'The biggest risk is embarking on something too big before you've demonstrated operational capability,' he said. We shouldn't be fearful of productive new technologies, in fact we should seek to dominate them. We shouldn't be fearful of productive new technologies, in fact we should seek to dominate them. Vice President JD Vance Another wild card lies with the founders and investors behind the growing army of defense startups, many holding deep ties to Trump's world. Beyond Musk, there's Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel — also a major investor in Anduril and SpaceX. He has long supported the president and backed Vance's earlier Senate run in Ohio after employing him as a venture capitalist. Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale worked with Musk on the America's PAC that helped Trump win in 2024. He also is an investor in Anduril, Epirus and Saronic. Marc Andreessen rallied others in Silicon Valley to support Trump; his VC firm has invested in Shield AI, Skydio, Saronic and other upstarts. Their clout isn't unprecedented. During WWII, major industrialists like Henry Ford — initially a pacifist — played important roles in the national debate, said Michael O'Hanlon, director of research for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He worries, though, that some of today's founders 'aren't aligned with the rest of us' and have tight relationships with President Trump. 'By aligning with a controversial president, that could have undue influence and dominate foreign policy with their control of the market.' To get a glimpse of the dynamic, consider Ukraine. Spacex's Starlink satellite network has been pivotal in keeping the smaller country in the fight against Russia. But the reliance on an individual like Musk has proven to have its drawbacks: His boast that Ukraine's front lines would collapse if he pulled access to Starlink sent European allies into a panic, underscoring the importance of steady relationships with reliable partners when working with such balance-shifting weaponry. This has given pause to some lawmakers like Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who also sits on the Armed Services Committee. While she is eager for reform, she's worried that giving someone like Musk such mammoth influence over the Defense Department's purse strings will lead to just a different form of taxpayer abuse. 'For decades, defense contractors have ripped off our military while producing equipment that costs too much and arrives too late,' Warren told Bloomberg. 'It's absurd to think that Elon Musk, a billionaire contractor himself, should police big defense companies when he is part of the problem.' Related tickers: PLTR:US (Palantir Technologies Inc.) LMT:US (Lockeed Martin Corp.) NOC:US (Northrop Grumman Corp.) BA:US (Boeing Co.) RTX:US (RTX Corp.) LHX:US (L3Harris Technologies Inc.) GD:US (General Dynamics Corp.) Edited by Anthony PalazzoMichael Ovaska Photo editing by Karolina Sekula With assistance from Courtney McBride
