Anduril CEO unveils the Fury unmanned fighter jet
In April, Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey arrived for his 60 Minutes interview in an outfit that's become a signature look: shorts, flip-flops, and a colorful Hawaiian shirt. He was also sporting a mullet and a goatee.
"I've actually always wanted a mullet my whole life," he laughingly told correspondent Sharyn Alfoni about his distinctive hairstyle.
But while Luckey's appearance is casual, his business is deadly serious. And the U.S. military is taking him seriously.
"I think I am very, very lucky that the level we are working with now is not judging Anduril on the basis of what shirt I wear or what my haircut is," he told 60 Minutes.
Anduril Industries, the company he co-founded in 2017, makes drones, aircraft, and submarines that all run autonomously. They can use artificial intelligence for surveillance or to identify, select, and eliminate a target. No operator is required.
Alfonsi pointed out in an interview with Luckey that the idea of autonomous arms is scary to some people.
"It's a scary idea, but, I mean, that's the world we live in. I'd say it's a lot scarier, for example, to imagine a weapons system that doesn't have any level of intelligence at all," Luckey said.
"There's no moral high ground to making a land mine that can't tell the difference between a school bus full of children and Russian armor… it's not a question between smart weapons and no weapons. It's a question between smart weapons and dumb weapons."
On a large screen in a conference room, Luckey demonstrated Lattice, the AI platform that can coordinate these so-called "smart weapons" and collect data from various sensors and sources, including satellites, drones, radar, and cameras.
Alfonsi asked Luckey about concerns that AI-powered devices like these could go rogue.
"I would say that it is something to be aware of. But in the grand scheme of things… there's things that I'm much more terrified of," the tech billionaire replied.
"I'm a lot more worried about evil people with mediocre advances in technology than AI deciding that it's gonna wipe us all out."
On Monday, UN Secretary General António Guterres said lethal autonomous weapons are "politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be banned by international law."
International groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call autonomous lethal weapons "killer robots."
Luckey has stated that all Anduril products have a so-called "kill switch" that allows humans to ultimately intervene in case of an emergency or undesired behavior.
Luckey also thinks sending autonomous weapons onto the battlefield could save the lives of American soldiers who would otherwise be killed in action.
"Right now, there are so many weapon systems that require manning," Luckey told Alfonsi.
"If I can have one guy command and controlling a hundred aircraft, that's a lot easier than having to have a pilot in every single one. And it puts a lot fewer American lives at risk."
Anduril hopes to leap forward in unmanned combat with Fury, a fighter jet that's designed to use artificial intelligence and fly without a pilot.
Co-founder and CEO Brian Schimpf took 60 Minutes into a hangar to show off Fury; it was the first time a media outlet was allowed to see the plane up close.
Fury is a CCA, or collaborative combat aircraft, that's designed to work in coordination with a manned aircraft.
Anduril and longtime defense contractor General Atomics won contracts from the U.S. Air Force to develop and test CCAs that could eventually become the official CCAs of the Air Force.
"The first thing you notice about this plane is that there's no cockpit. There is no seat. There's no controls. There's no stick and rudder inside this. And there's no place for a human," Schimpf told 60 Minutes Overtime.
"This is an autonomous fighter jet. It has software inside that can sense and understand everything going on in the airspace, and [it's] able to react. And it works with a quarterback to be able to do this."
Schimpf told 60 Minutes that Fury would work in conjunction with a manned aircraft flying behind it, spotting enemies and protecting the manned aircraft.
"In a combat environment, you would have these things sitting out in front, and they would detect the enemies earlier. They'd be able to engage. And it really is designed to protect those manned pilots sitting in the rear," Schimpf explained.
Schimpf said components, like the landing gear, use common parts that are more readily available in the United States when compared to a typical fighter jet, which could make it easier and cheaper to mass produce.
"Instead of using very exquisite, big aircraft landing gear, which are hard to produce… we designed it so it can be built in any machine shop in America. Instead of using a military engine, we've been able to use a commercial business jet engine that [is] mass produced and readily available," he explained.
Fury is scheduled to take its first test flight this summer. The Air Force hopes to have CCAs fully operational before the end of this decade.
"[We're still] proving out the aircraft… we're also working through how will these things be used in combat. We're working through simulations and ways these can actually be employed," Schimpf told 60 Minutes.
"This is a big deal beyond just making an airplane that flies. It's an entirely new way of fighting."
The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer.
