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My understanding of the Shahed's is that they are relatively simple. They can be programmed with a certain destination and then have some basic image recognitio

My understanding of the Shahed's is that they are relatively simple. They can be programmed with a certain destination and then have some basic image recognition that allows them to "choose" exactly their target based on computer vision, e.g. the shape of a building or radar station. So in that sense, they are autonomous. To my mind, they are more cheap precision missiles (more like a tomahawk) than an autonomous drone. Predators are a whole different beast. They are semi-autonomous airplanes, that can be controlled by satellite or AWAC or whatever. Almost certainly with the ability to loiter or escape if they lose contact with their controllers

YeGoblynQueenne 2mo ago
Shaheds (some models) have loitering ability, and other "autonomy" features. Tbh the term is as fuzzy as "AGI" or "self-driving" these days because there are a bunch of automatisms that a drone can have that are often labelled so. However, an autonomous system should do much more than go to a designated location and fire at a target that looks like it might be the designated target. I mean to say, pathfinding and image recognition do not autonomy make; or they shouldn't be said to anyway. As I like to say of course, self-guided missiles are arguably autonomous; but that's just because their whole job is to reach a target while causing maximum damage on hit. That removes many of the requirements of other "autonomous" systems (e.g. self-driving cars). P.S. I honestly don't know much about Predators but I expect they're going to have the most advanced features available.