I thought for sure autonomous war drones would have become way more prolific by now

It just took until recently for a war to break out with the right conditions for drone warfare to actually make sense. I posted this photo in another comment:

This is the city of Lyman following a battle. Those are fiber optic strands, used for long distance wired (therefore can’t be jammed by radio signal) control of the drones by their operators. Every one of those strands had a drone at the end of it.

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Ukraine has also made significant headway damaging major military assets via drone, sinking a significant portion of Russia’s navy as well as basically making tanks obsolete in ground offensives. Flame throwing drones, drones that launch other drones to attack drones, etc. The cyberpunk future is here!