China is teaching its drones to fight like animals. Engineers at Beihang University, linked to the military, created a system where defensive drones act like hawks, targeting the weakest enemy drones. Meanwhile, attacking drones move like doves, trying to dodge the hawks. In a five-on-five test battle, the hawks destroyed all the doves in just 5.3 seconds. This innovation earned a patent in April 2024. This is part of China’s push to use artificial intelligence in running drone swarms and other unmanned military devices. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aims to operate drones and robot dogs with little human control. Chinese military thinkers see AI as a game changer, comparing its impact to gunpowder, a historic Chinese invention. Drones already play key roles in conflicts like Ukraine, serving as scouts, decoys, or weapons. China can build over a million low-cost drones yearly, far outpacing the US’s tens of thousands at higher costs. China also showed weaponized robot wolves that might work with drone swarms. Experts say AI may help cover the PLA’s training gaps. Sunny Cheung from the Jamestown Foundation said, “At a tactical level, for concrete missions, there’s a growing consensus [in Chinese military writings] that autonomous systems have the potential to perform better than humans.” China’s military plans go beyond just flying drones. They are developing systems to broadcast deepfake videos, deploy robot dogs, and use directed sound weapons. Still, there are risks if AI-controlled systems make deadly decisions alone or fail due to countermeasures like signal jamming. China also studies other animals — ants, whales, eagles — to improve how drones act together in swarms. Since 2022, Chinese military groups filed around 930 patents on swarm intelligence, while the US has about 60. US military efforts focus more on individual drones helping human soldiers. Experts warn China’s mix of AI and mass drone production could flood enemy defenses, for example, in a Taiwan conflict. Stacie Pettyjohn from the Center for a New American Security said, “You could very easily have this dense amount of firepower up there just constantly scanning and searching and making it very hard for Taiwan to conduct defensive operations.” Chinese thinkers also warn of dangers. Zhu Qichao from China’s National Defense University wrote, “Once an artificial intelligence weapon system produces safety hazards, the ‘algorithm black box’ may become a rationalized excuse for the relevant responsible parties to shirk responsibility.”