The Killer Robots Filling Ukrainian Skies

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Exchanges. The Goldman Sachs podcast featuring exchanges on the forces driving the markets and the economy. Exchanges between the leading minds at Goldman Sachs. New episodes every week. Listen now.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Monday, November 25th. I'm Belle Lin for The Wall Street Journal.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Even home automation lovers are shying away from internet-connected home appliances like smart ovens and smart dishwashers.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_03]: While many smart devices do offer useful features, we'll find out why some homeowners are choosing to keep their appliances off the Wi-Fi.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And then, autopilot has arrived on the Ukrainian battlefield. At least tens of thousands of drones that can autonomously carry out their final attacks are being mass-produced by suppliers for Ukraine's war effort against Russia.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Our Ukraine bureau chief, James Marson, tells us how these robots might impact the war.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_03]: But first, why do smart appliances continue to be so dumb?

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Internet-connected ovens, microwaves, and dishwashers have yet to add much value to homeowners.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_03]: A WSJ report last year found that only around half of the buyers of smart home appliances from two major manufacturers actually keep them connected to the internet.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_03]: For more on why this is and why manufacturers continue to link their appliances to Wi-Fi, we're joined by our deputy mansion editor, Chris Frieswick, who wrote about this for WSJ's Home Onerous column.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Chris, what have the manufacturers touted as some of the benefits of their smart appliances?

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_02]: A whirlpool washing machine had a feature called assign a task that basically you have to have an app on your phone to run this washing machine.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And when the washing cycle is done, the washing machine texts you via your app to let you know that the cycle is done.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, and I'm quoting, enables you to send a customized text to somebody in your home to tell them to put the wash into the dryer.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that we had touted as a huge benefit was that you could remotely start your clothes dryer.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Bell, try to come up with a scenario in which you would want to remotely start your clothes dryer.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Someone has just put the clothes into the dryer and unless you want your clothes to smell mildewy, you pretty much want to start that dryer right away.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just a litany of things of this nature.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Now, to be fair, there are some features that some of the people that I spoke with said that they have found beneficial or useful in some circumstances.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_02]: For instance, you can remote preheat your oven if you're, say, picking up your kids and you're running late and you know you need to get your oven started.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_03]: It kind of also assumes this futuristic level of connectedness that we're really not quite there yet.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_02]: What was really interesting to me is that I specifically interviewed people who are super duper home automation specialists.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Like they have so much connected stuff in their home, smart bidets, smart thermostats, smart, you name it.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: But the thing they don't have in their homes are smart home appliances because they just don't add any real actual value, the sort of value that you get from, say, a smart vacuum.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Where you set it, you forget it.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It learns your house.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It does this thing.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You actually don't really have to think about it all that much.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: It kind of is the perfect smart appliance.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I spoke with a guy who was a researcher who does market research for IDC who revealed that smart devices sales have been really on the outs for the last three years since the beginning of the pandemic.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And he's, you know, he's a very technologically savvy man and he loves a smart vacuum.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: But he said, you know, I haven't hooked up my smart dishwasher because a really, truly smart dishwasher would load itself, unload itself.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Chris, you say that most smart appliances have whizzed right past smart and circled back to dumb.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_03]: So what makes these appliances, as you put it, dumb?

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the lack of value provided to the owner of the smart appliance in exchange for all of the detail and all of the information that you have to provide in order to use, in many cases, turn on these appliances and use them at all.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Some features on these appliances are not available to you unless you're connected.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_03]: What did Whirlpool and LG tell you about why some customers aren't actually connecting their appliances to the Internet?

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_02]: The Journal did reporting on this last year when they did a story on the percent of owners of these smart appliances that were no longer connected to the Internet.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And at that time, they told the reporter that the reason was because a lot of people's Wi-Fi connectivity near the appliances were bad.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_02]: They were complicated to hook up or a lot of people were concerned about the privacy issues of divulging all of that information to them.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: When I reached back out to the two companies that were quoted in that story, LG and Whirlpool, Whirlpool declined to comment, did not want to update the connectivity numbers.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And LG said that it had compiled data. Unfortunately, it did not get back to me in time for press time.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Why are manufacturers still making these Internet-connected appliances?

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Part of it is that there's always this technology arms race.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_02]: There's also a desire by them to collect our data because they can sell that data on.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And it gives them insight not only into who exactly their end customers are, which most manufacturers don't have.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_03]: That was Chris Frieswick, our deputy mansion editor, who also writes WSJ's home onerous column.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Coming up, we'll take a closer look at the killer robots on the Ukrainian battlefield.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_03]: That's after the break.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Kuntenservice contact?

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: For many people is that the best way, a nice day to ruin.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But at Zendesk we're looking for a better Customer Experience.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Better for the grandmother, better for the florist, better for the young man in house number 3a.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Better for you, better for everyone.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Because while some people say that the customer always has right, we say that the customer always are people.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And since we're also people, we do something good for us all.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_03]: In a frontline dugout this spring, a Ukrainian drone operator chose his target, a Russian ammo truck, by tapping it on a screen with a stylus.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Then, by flipping a switch on his handset, the pilot selected autopilot and watched as the drone swooped down from a few hundred yards away and hit the vehicle.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Ukraine is attempting to use these autonomous computer-aided drones to help it combat Russia's huge army.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And now, Kyiv's drone suppliers are ramping up production.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_03]: For more on what they mean for the battlefield, we're joined by WSJ Ukraine Bureau Chief James Marson.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_03]: James, tell us what's new about how Ukraine's suppliers are manufacturing drones to combat Russia's army.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So, for about two years now, Ukraine has been using explosive drones on the battlefield.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: They're called first-person view drones, FPVs for short.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You have a pilot who wears goggles and uses a handset to guide them.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And they can fly up to about 15 miles and strike targets.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: They carry explosives on them, so when they impact, they explode.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: In recent months, Ukraine has been experimenting on the battlefield.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It's been using a technology called terminal guidance, whereby the drone has a small computer mounted on it with software.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: That can guide the drone in the roughly two-thirds of a mile from a target.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is really important because the main way that the Russians have countered Ukrainian drones is by using electronic jammers.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So, these jammers overload the signal between the pilot, who has the controller in his hands, and the drone itself.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: So, when that signal is overloaded, that can cause the drone to crash, and then it won't explode on the target.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is causing the majority of Ukrainian strikes to be unsuccessful.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you'd get one in three for a good pilot, one in five maybe, a hit rate for an average pilot, and it can get worse.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And also, depending on the level of Russian electronic warfare in the area.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if the drone is being controlled by that computer, using the software that's loaded onto it, then that isn't a problem.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Because it's being flown, the control and the drone itself, it's all in one place, so there's no signal that can be overloaded.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_03]: It sounds like these are automated drones, or they're kind of running on autopilot.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. That's right. In the final phase, they're running on autopilot, but the target is selected for them.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting is that this technology has been around for a while.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It's been used in much more expensive missiles and things like that.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: What's really clever about this is it's been shrunk down to a small size and made cheap.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: The drones themselves cost about $500 to make.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You add the computers, the software and other equipment on, that gets more expensive depending on which company is doing it.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_00]: They've been shown to work on the battlefield by several companies.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: What's happening now is we're starting to see a ramp up of this technology.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So I spoke to a Ukrainian company called Viri, which is going to start producing, it said from November, producing thousands of these systems.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a US-based company called Otterion, which is going to be delivering tens of thousands of its version of this kind of drone in the new year.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to start to see a big ramp up of these drones arriving on the battlefield and potentially having a big impact.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_03]: You told us a bit about the makers of these autonomous or automated drones.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Tell us, what is their production process like?

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_00]: In our story, we mentioned two different companies who come at it from two quite different angles in a way.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00]: One of them is a Ukrainian startup that was founded after the war began by a 26-year-old who just wanted to do something to help his country.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Got some of his friends and acquaintances together, realized there was something in drones.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And now, you know, all this time later, they're creating these autopilot drones in great numbers.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and it's a very dynamic field.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So there are lots of drone companies in Ukraine competing with each other.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_00]: For this company, Viri, what their CEO said to me is the most important thing is the cheapest possible equipment that will work, that will do the job.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So they're not looking for an exquisite platform that will be all singing, all dancing.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_00]: They want it to do a job as cheap as possible.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_00]: He gave me one example.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: They're able to build a drone out of only Ukrainian components.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But because the camera and the motor are in, the price for them, the Ukrainian versions is twice as high as the Chinese ones.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're not in such good supply.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: They will continue to buy the Chinese ones.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Then the other company is a U.S.-based company called Arterion, which has been around for years and has done work with the Pentagon.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So what Arterion does is it has its own mini computer uploaded with software.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And it integrates a range of functions, guidance, targeting, networking.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: There's digital communications, which make it much harder to hack or jam.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And this can also be used on fixed-wing drones, which can fly a much greater distance and carry out deeper strikes on the Russians.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So that solution is a bit more universal, a bit more versatile and a bit more expensive.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, the Ukrainians see advantages in both of them.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_03]: That was our Ukraine Bureau Chief, James Marson.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's it for Tech News Briefing.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Catherine Millsop.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Logging off, I'm Belle Lin for The Wall Street Journal.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll sign back in this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening.