White Stork—White Stork developed autonomous targeting drones despite Schmidt publicly opposing lethal autonomous weapons
Despite 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.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Safety | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Corporate Transparency | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.643 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
Reporting revealed White Stork's autonomous drone capabilities contradict Schmidt's public stance against lethal autonomous weapons
Despite Schmidt publicly calling automated kill decisions 'terrible' at Stanford in 2024, White Stork's X-Drone quadcopters 'can attack Russian soldiers with or without a human in the loop' and 'when communications fail, the drones could hunt alone.' The company operated through multiple shell companies obscuring ownership.