May 18, 2026 · 1h 59m · latent-space
FPV Drones -The Next War Is Already Here — Yaroslav Azhnyuk, The Fourth Law & Noah Smith, Noahpinion
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In this episode of Latent Space, Ukrainian tech entrepreneur Yaroslav Azhnyuk joins Noah Smith and Brandon to explore how low-cost autonomous FPV drones are redefining modern warfare, rendering traditional armored doctrines obsolete, and exposing major industrial defense deficits in the West.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.1 Guest teaching 6.5 Guest disagreement 2.3 The hosts pushing back 2.9
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:54:30 Challenging the 'Dumb Russian Army' Stereotype
Yaroslav immediately pushes back against Brandon's assumption that the Russian military is inherently unsophisticated, warning that Western echo chambers dangerously underestimate adversary adaptation.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 1:14:00 Noah's WWII Industrial Mobilization CounterargumentNoah challenges Yaroslav's pessimism regarding Western defense scaling deficits by citing America's rapid transformation from near-zero defense industrial capacity on the eve of World War II to overwhelming global production.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 20:20 Physics of Earth Curvature and Terminal GuidanceYaroslav educates the hosts on the geometrical reality of the radio horizon, demonstrating why FPV pilots lose RF signal in the final descent unless autonomous terminal lock is implemented.
The host holds their own ▶ 52:00 Noah Defending the Long-term Trajectory of Machine Learning WarfareNoah defends his machine learning predictions by articulating the multidimensional search dynamics of AI problem-solving, substantiating his decade-long thesis on automated combat.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pivoting to Defense Tech and Dual-Use Ethics | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Brandon and Noah explore the moral and ethical implications of shifting from consumer pet tech to lethal drone manufacturing. Yaroslav reframes dual-use ethics by explaining that defending one's homeland against existential threats makes weapon development an unambiguous moral necessity. | |
| Building Drone Autonomy and Thermal Systems at Scale | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Yaroslav outlines the operational structure of The Fourth Law and Odd Systems, describing terminal guidance modules and high-speed interceptors. Noah and Brandon ask clarifying technical questions about battery limits, interception speeds, and optics integration. | |
| Radio Horizons, Fiber Optics, and the God of War | 5 | 7 | 2 | 3 | Yaroslav schools the hosts on practical battlefield physics, explaining how radio horizons and earth curvature blind pilots in the terminal dive. He also highlights how global AI data center demand drove optical fiber prices up eightfold, disrupting supply lines. | |
| The Obsolescence of Heavy Armor and Unit Cost Asymmetry | 5 | 6 | 3 | 2 | The discussion covers the diminishing battlefield utility of heavy armor and the staggering cost asymmetry between 155mm NATO artillery shells ($4,000) and mass-produced FPV strike drones ($400). Yaroslav dismisses dismissive rhetoric from legacy defense contractors regarding Ukrainian drone fabrication. | |
| The Five Levels of Autonomy and Eight Dimensions of Drone Warfare | 4 | 8 | 1 | 2 | Yaroslav presents a detailed pedagogical breakdown of the five levels of drone autonomy and the eight operational dimensions of autonomous warfare. The hosts ask clarifying questions to unpack how terminal guidance boosts brigade-level mission success rates from 20% to 71%. | |
| Level Six Autonomy, Safety Risks, and the Role of Human Infantry | 7 | 6 | 3 | 4 | Brandon and Noah leverage their technical backgrounds in machine learning to challenge assumptions about out-of-distribution shifts and fully autonomous general-level AI. Noah highlights his 2013 prediction on human infantry obsolescence, while Yaroslav provides grounded nuance from frontline trench dynamics. | |
| China's Industrial Dominance and Western Defense Deficits | 6 | 7 | 3 | 4 | Yaroslav illustrates China's overwhelming manufacturing asymmetry, projecting their capacity at 4 billion FPV drones compared to Ukraine's 4 million. Noah pushes back with historical parallels to US industrial mobilization in World War II, though Yaroslav points out critical differences in modern component supply chains. | |
| European Complacency, Nuclear Deterrence, and Broken Assurances | 6 | 6 | 3 | 3 | The conversation shifts to European defense complacency, procurement failures, and the geopolitical fallout of the Budapest Memorandum. Both guest and hosts agree that the failure of security assurances logically drives allied nations toward independent nuclear deterrence programs. | |
| Comparative Drone Taxonomy and Air Interception Tactics | 5 | 7 | 3 | 3 | Noah asks whether Ukraine maintains an overall lead in drone warfare, prompting Yaroslav to nuance the claim by categorizing across 30 distinct drone domains. He details where Ukraine leads (deep strike, naval drones) and where Russia retains dangerous advantages (glide bombs and CRPA antennas). | |
| Kinetic Countermeasures and the Economics of Directed Energy | 5 | 7 | 2 | 3 | Yaroslav breaks down counter-UAS kinetics ranging from field shotguns and mechanical fishnets to directed energy lasers. He exposes the economic disparity of deploying $3M directed-energy systems against swarms of cheap kamikaze drones. |
Statements from this episode (29)
Azhnyuk: Helped launch Ukrainian cluster Brave1 and Schmidt-backed fund D3
“We helped start Brave One which is now very important. Defense innovation cluster, sort of like a DIU here in the US. We helped start a fund called D three just like I was started or co-started by Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google.”
Azhnyuk: Drones make warfare software-defined for first time in history
“Warfare is redefined by drones as platforms, and for the first time in history, you have a platform that is software-defined, ah, that can increase your battlefield capabilities, ah, you know, in, in a step change just overnight. So, it's like, if you were abl…”
Azhnyuk: Wartime survival demands building weapons before calculating ethics edge cases
“When you're in a situation where you're in a forest in front of a wolf, you know, you first gonna deal with the wolf that wants to eat you, and then you're gonna go consult Greenpeace. So that's kind of situation that Ukraine is in.”
Azhnyuk: The Fourth Law leads in on-drone AI and thermal imaging
“And this group of companies is currently the leading team in on-drone AI and thermal imaging on the Ukrainian battlefield. And likely one of the leading, if not the leading in the world.”
Azhnyuk: The Fourth Law supplies cameras and autonomy to over 200 Ukrainian drone makers
“So the cameras and drone autonomy sell daytime and nighttime cameras and different types of drone autonomous modules. To other drone manufacturers, over 200 drone manufacturers in Ukraine.”
Azhnyuk: Xerov Shahed interceptor drone reaches 326 km/h
“Look Shahed interceptor, like ours is called Xerov. It goes up to 326 kilometers per hour.”
Azhnyuk: The Fourth Law starting construction on two semiconductor plants
“And we're about to start construction of two semiconductor plants to make sensors for thermal cameras.”
Azhnyuk: Standard 10-Inch Ukrainian FPV Drones Strike at 30-40 Kilometers
“Many hits are happening between 30 and 40 kilometers, and that's what expected from a regular 10 inch, ah, FPV drone.”
Azhnyuk: FPV Drones Cause 70% to 80% of Frontline Casualties
“Out of all the casualties on the frontline, between 70 and 80% are done by FPV drones.”
Azhnyuk: Standard 155mm NATO artillery shells cost about $4,000 each
“An artillery shell for one 55 caliber, ah, which is a standard NATO caliber, currently market price is about 4000 dollars per piece.”
Azhnyuk: FPV drone autonomy hardware costs hundreds of dollars in BOM
“When you put full autonomy on that FPV drone, which can be not very expensive, like systems that we're producing, they're like hundreds of dollars of pure bomb costs.”
Azhnyuk: Full autonomy increases FPV drone capability by 10,000 times
“Such full autonomy increases the capabilities of an FPV drone, which is already, like, three orders more powerful than an artillery shell. Full autonomy increases its capabilities by four orders of magnitude, because now you can have a hundred times as many pe…”
Azhnyuk: Terminal guidance boosted Ukrainian drone pilot's success rate to 71%
“So just that feature alone it has increased the guy's call sign is Grom. So it has increased his mission success rate, like, precision, yeah, mission success rate from 20% to 71%, and it also increased his kill zone from three kilometers to 10 kilometers, whic…”
Azhnyuk: Ukraine made 4M FPV drones last year with 7M targeted this year
“Last year alone, Ukraine manufactured about four million of these, and then Russia's maybe, like, 20% less than that. And for this year, the publicly voiced target was seven million on the Ukrainian side.”
Azhnyuk: In 5-10 years, using weapons without AI will be immoral
“I think, you know, to your point, I think five to 10 years from now, it will be immoral to use weapons without AI. Because weapons without AI will be more likely to cause collateral damage or unwanted damage.”
Azhnyuk: Driving cars manually will eventually be considered immoral
“Same way, it will be immoral to drive your own car manually on a public road because it's more likely to cause unwanted damage.”
Azhnyuk: Inexpensive local hardware now runs near-SOTA open-source AI models
“You can have basically an inexpensive computer running, you know, what was a state of the art model year and a half ago, running it locally on a device with an open source model, which also means that the Chinese can have it, the Russians can have it, the Nort…”
Azhnyuk: Humanoid robots might be useful in combat within five years
“I would have said that, you know, I don't think that humanoid robots will be able to be useful in the battlefield earlier than in 10 years. But, you know, if you account for the exponential it might be, you know, five years or so.”
Azhnyuk: Replacing human infantry with autonomous weapons is not near
“I'm not seeing that very close. And it was like, I'm, you know, as much as I'm a lover of sci-fi and all of that, and a technologist, the more I try to be Like, I tried to have certain humility about these things and like the military domain, and there was jus…”
Azhnyuk: The West Lacks Key Technology and Manufacturing to Counter China
“So we lack technology, we lack mass manufacturing capacity, we lack the components, and we lack the rare earth materials. Sort of four layers in which we're behind this challenge.”
Azhnyuk: China Leads the US in EVs and Humanoid Robotics
“And then if we look at, you know, electric car race, I think they're ahead of the US and ahead of the whole world, definitely ahead of Europe, which used to be sort of a car superpower. When you look at AI, I think they're almost where we are, maybe slightly b…”
Azhnyuk: Nuclear Weapons Are Now the Only Credible Deterrence
“Someone, someone someone could argue that if a country currently doesn't work on their own nuclear program, They're doing a disservice to their country and the government should be fired. Like, because it seems like from the recent world history that, that, th…”
Azhnyuk: Front-strike helicopters will see increasingly reduced battlefield usage
“Front strike helicopters, I think we're going to be seeing fewer and fewer of them.”
Azhnyuk: Both Ukraine and Russia use helicopters to intercept deep-strike drones
“Ukraine uses a lot of helicopters to shoot down Shahids, and Russia uses helicopters to shoot down our deep strike drones.”
Thousands of drones have been shot down with shotguns in Ukraine
“There are like hundreds, maybe thousands of cases of drones being shut down with shotguns, both by, definitely thousands, but both by Ukrainians and Russians.”
Fishnets cover roads near Ukraine's frontline to block FPV drones
“If you go to Ukrainian east and sort of territories close to the front lines, I think like about 50 kilometers in from the front line, all the roads are covered by fishnets. So you literally, you ride in a corridor of fishnets, and that's the mechanical counte…”
The Fourth Law is developing AI-guided anti-FPV interceptor drones
“Those are the things that are being developed, and like we're working on some of these things as well”
Azhnyuk: Warfare has shifted from multi-billion platforms to rapidly iteratable mass
“It's no longer about an aircraft carrier that costs whatever, fourteen billion dollars, and takes forever to build. It's about mass, ah, that is, you can iterate on very quickly, you can upgrade it, everyone can operate it, and then that mass, when it is combi…”