Incident 121: Autonomous Kargu-2 Drone Allegedly Remotely Used to Hunt down Libyan Soldiers

Description: In Libya, a Turkish-made Kargu-2 aerial drone powered by a computer vision model was allegedly used remotely by forces backed by the Tripoli-based government to track down and attack enemies as they were running from rocket attacks.

Tools

New ReportNew ReportNew ResponseNew ResponseDiscoverDiscoverView HistoryView History
Alleged: STM developed an AI system deployed by Tripoli-based government, which harmed Libyan soldiers.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
121
Report Count
4
Incident Date
2020-03-27
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Was a flying killer robot used in Libya? Quite possibly
thebulletin.org · 2021

A screenshot from a promotional video advertising the Kargu drone. In the video, the weapon dives toward a target before exploding.

Last year in Libya, a Turkish-made autonomous weapon—the STM Kargu-2 drone—may have “hunted down and remotel…

A Military Drone With A Mind Of Its Own Was Used In Combat, U.N. Says
npr.org · 2021

Military-grade autonomous drones can fly themselves to a specific location, pick their own targets and kill without the assistance of a remote human operator. Such weapons are known to be in development, but until recently there were no rep…

AI-powered drone deployed in Libya has possibly killed people without any human interference
iafrikan.com · 2021

It has been revealed that an Artificial Intelligence-powered military drone was able to identify and attack human targets in Libya. The drone, Kargu-2, is made by a Turkish company (STM) and fitted with a payload that explodes once it makes…

A.I. Drone May Have Acted on Its Own in Attacking Fighters, U.N. Says
nytimes.com · 2021

A military drone that attacked soldiers during a battle in Libya’s civil war last year may have done so without human control, according to a recent report commissioned by the United Nations.

The drone, which the report described as “a leth…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.