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About two months ago , Shield AI carbon monoxide gas - beginner Brandon Tseng and one of his employees were in an Uber weaving through Kyiv , Ukraine . They were headed to a meeting with military officials to sell them on their AI pilot organisation and drones , when suddenly his employee showed him a warning on his speech sound . Russian bomb were incoming . Tseng meet his potential demise with a shrug . “ If it ’s your time to go , ” he say , “ then it ’s your time to go . ”
If anything , Tseng , a former Navy SEAL , was itching for more activity . Shield AI employees had previously been to much more dangerous areas in Ukraine , grooming flock on its software and drone . “ I ’m quite jealous of where they get to go , ” Tseng said . “ Just from an adventure point of view . ”
Tseng embody that quiet macho - ness that pervades most defence tech founders . When I met him last calendar month at the company ’s Arlington office , he read off a knife display in his office etch with the sealskin shibboleth “ Suffer in muteness . ” The white wall , whose tops glowed with fluorescent lights ( to look like a spaceship , Tseng articulate ) , were covered with slogan like “ Do what honor dictate ” and “ Earn your shield every solar day . ” I pointed out they were pretty intense . “ Are they ? ” Tseng replied .
In 2015 , Tseng founded Shield AI alongside his brother , Ryan Tseng , a patent of invention - grant electric railroad engineer , with a exculpated mission : “ We built the domain ’s proficient AI pilot light , ” he said . “ I want to put a million AI pilots in customers ’ hands . ”
To that end , he and his brotherhave lift over $ 1 billionfrom investors like Riot Ventures and the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund . The company develops AI software system to make air fomite autonomous , although Tseng said they require Shield AI ’s computer software in underwater and surface systems as well . It also has hardware product , like its drone V - BAT .
Shield AI is also part of a rarified class of defense tech startup : one that ’s actually land decently sized government contracts , like its$198 million contractfrom the Coast Guard this year . As if trying to position themselves for an even bigger future , the founding father opt a new business office surrounded by three flooring of Raytheon , one of the major defence contractile organ .
Ukraine: The lab for U.S. defense tech startups
September 16 was a sign of the changing time : Instead of making defence technical school laminitis fly to the Capitol , put on their suit , and grovel to politician , Washington , D.C. , come to them .
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Members of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee gathered with Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar , Brandon Tseng , and executives from Skydio , Applied hunch , and Saildrone at UC Santa Cruz ’s Silicon Valley campus . They discussed U.S. Department of Defense ( DoD ) acquisition reform and , unavoidably , the use of U.S. technology in Ukraine . It was the firstpublic hearingthe committee has held outside of Washington , D.C. , since 2006 .
Ukraine has “ been a great laboratory , ” Tseng differentiate the policymakers . “ What I think the Ukrainians have discovered is that they ’re not going to use anything that does n’t work on the field of battle , period . ”
defence technical school founders , like Anduril atomic number 27 - founderPalmer LuckeyandSkydio co - founderAdam Bry , have all flocked to the embattled country to sell comparatively new technology for a rapidly degenerate field of honor . unluckily , not all U.S. technical school is working . According to aWall Street Journal report , drones from U.S. startups have almost universally fail to operate through electronic war in Ukraine , meaning the drones cease to act under Russia ’s GPS blackout engineering .
“ Ukraine is at war and mass are being killed . But … you want to take those object lesson learned , ” Tseng told me a week later , reflecting on the hearing . “ You do n’t desire to have to relearn any of those lessons . The United States should not want to relearn any of those deterrent example . ”
Naturally , he ’s confident that Shield AI ’s drones have make out better in Ukraine than others because , he says , they can operate without swear on GPS . “ We are work to get more drones over there ground on the successes that we ’ve had , ” he said , although he declined to name specifics of how many drones Shield AI has sent over .
Terminator-like AI killers? Or ‘Ender’s Game’?
Tseng ’s box federal agency is bare besides a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence , hanging crooked on the bulwark . He listed it as one of his biggest inspirations . “ It ’s not because we ’re perfect , but because we aspire to these values that I would arrogate are perfect values , ” he said . “ That ’s what matters most . We ’re always butt in that counseling . ”
He straightened out the anatomy before brush through an abbreviated history of warfare . Deterrence , he said , tends to come about when a extremist new technology emerges , like the atom bomb , or stealth engineering science and GPS . AI , he said , will usher in the unexampled era of deterrence — assuming the DoD fund it by rights . “ secret companies are putting more money towards AI and autonomy than any aggregative amount in the defense budget , ” he say .
The potential value of AI - related federal contract billow to $ 4.6 billion in 2023 from $ 335 million in 2022 , according toa report by the Brookings Institution . But that ’s still a fraction of the over $ 70 billion that VCs endow in defense tech in some the same period , accord to PitchBook .
Still , the biggest query of military AI use is not budget — it ’s ethics . beginner and policymakers alike clamshell with whether to countenance wholly autonomous artillery , have in mind the AI itself resolve when to kill . Lately , some founding father ’ empty talk appear to be on the side of building such weapons .
A few day ago , for instance , Anduril ’s Luckeyclaimed there was “ a shadow drive being wag in the United Nations powerful now by many of our adversaries ” to trick Western countries into not aggressively quest for AI . He incriminate that in full autonomous AI was no worse than realm mines . He did n’t mention , however , that the U.S. is among over 160 nations thatagreed to ban the use of anti - personnel land minesin the vast majority of places .
Tseng is firmly opposed to to the full autonomous weapon . “ I ’ve had to make the moral decision about utilizing lethal force out on the battlefield , ” he said . “ That is a human determination and it will always be a human decision . That is Shield AI ’s standpoint . That is also the U.S. military ’s standpoint . ”
He ’s right that the U.S. military machine does not currently purchase to the full autonomous weapon system , although it does not ban companies from developing them . What if the U.S. transfer its stand ? “ I think it ’s a unhinged hypothetical , ” he answered . “ Congress does n’t desire that . No one wants that . ”
So if he does n’t foresee an US Army of Terminator - like slayer , what does he envision ? “ A individual person could dominate and control a million drones , ” Tseng tell . “ There ’s not a technical limitation on how much a single person could overlook effectively on the battlefield . ”
It ’s going to be akin to “ Ender ’s Game , ” he said , referencing the 1985 sci - fi classic where a baby military policeman can release host of space United States Army with the wave of a hand .
“ Except instead of actual homo that he was commanding , it ’ll be f — ing robots , ” Tseng said .
