White Stork developed autonomous targeting drones despite Schmidt publicly opposing lethal autonomous weapons
Jan 1, 2026Despite Eric Schmidt publicly warning against autonomous weapons at Stanford in 2024, calling automated kill decisions 'terrible,' White Stork's X-Drone developed AI quadcopters that 'can attack Russian soldiers with or without a human in the loop' and 'when communications fail, the drones could hunt alone.' NORDA Dynamics founder Nazar Bigun stated: 'I think we created the monster. And I'm not sure where it's going to go.' The company operated through multiple shell companies (Merops, Aurelian Industries, Swift Beat, Volya Robotics) obscuring Schmidt's ownership until investigative reporting revealed it.