The Black Hornet Nano-drone Can Now Be Controlled by Voice Commands

Longtime readers might remember when we first began discussing and warning about insect-sized drones and drone swarms more than a decade ago. The insect-drone concept is thought to have originated as far back as at least the 1970s with the CIA pursuing a dragonfly drone. Since then, we have seen an increasingly rapid development in drone technology, as well as a military push to further automate their capabilities.

We now have robobees that no longer need a power source, as well as microdrones that can use power lines to harvest energy, as seen in the video below.

In the world of drone mad science we’ve also seen an effort recently to create zombie drones made from dead birds as another method of hiding in plain sight. Larger drone systems already have achieved mass coordination from a single human drone operator where more than one hundred quadcopters can be synchronized with the help of virtual and augmented reality.

Apparently, current systems are still too clumsy for military planners. As Defense One reportsbelow, the latest advancement removes hand-held controls altogether and turns over control of a bug-sized drone (or drone swarm) to voice commands. While this is alarming enough, no mention is made of the potential infusion of ChatGPT or other generative AI systems which not only can clone voice commands, but potentially could offer a whole new level of automation that drifts beyond human control.