# AI ‘Monster’ Drones: Baykar Chief Warns of Cheap Autonomy Reshaping Global Air Power

*Thursday, July 2, 2026 at 6:06 PM UTC — Hamer Intelligence Services Desk*

**Published**: 2026-07-02T18:06:39.424Z (2h ago)
**Category**: geopolitics | **Region**: Global
**Importance**: 8/10
**Sources**: OSINT
**Permalink**: https://hamerintel.com/data/articles/9671.md
**Source**: https://hamerintel.com/summaries

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**Deck**: Baykar’s chief technology officer Selçuk Bayraktar says AI-powered combat drones are a “different species” from traditional fighter jets — “a robot. A monster. Very dangerous. And cheap” — and predicts that roughly 15,000 manned fighters worldwide will likely be replaced by unmanned systems within 30 years. His comments, delivered as he likened autonomous drones to the computer that beat chess champion Garry Kasparov and warned that “institutions are finished,” show how a leading Turkish manufacturer sees cheap kamikaze and AI platforms transforming not just battlefields but the global balance of air power. Readers will learn why low-cost autonomy could undermine decades of Western air dominance.

The man behind some of the world’s most widely used combat drones believes the age of the fighter pilot is nearing its end — and warns that the machines poised to replace them could upend both military balance and moral restraint. Selçuk Bayraktar, chairman and chief technology officer of Turkey’s Baykar, is not just touting a product line; he is sketching a future in which cheap, AI-driven aircraft crowd out the sleek, human-flown jets that have symbolized air power for generations.

Bayraktar argues that artificial intelligence has already shifted the contest. Comparing AI-powered combat drones to the IBM computer that famously defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, he says the very idea of pitting human pilots against autonomous aircraft is becoming obsolete. “There is no human in this aircraft. It can do everything a manned aircraft does — and more,” he says, emphasizing that such systems can be produced at far lower cost and without the years of training required to create elite aviators.

In his view, this is not simply the next increment in fighter development but a categorical break. Bayraktar rejects talk of “sixth-generation” or “seventh-generation” fighters, insisting that AI combat drones are “a different species. It is a robot. A monster. Very dangerous. And cheap.” That combination — lethality, autonomy and low unit cost — is precisely what worries militaries that have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in small fleets of highly advanced manned jets.

Bayraktar predicts that approximately 15,000 fighter aircraft currently in service around the world will “probably” be replaced by unmanned combat aircraft within 30 years. If that forecast holds even partially true, countries that master autonomous air warfare — in hardware, software and doctrine — would gain a decisive edge over those that remain tied to smaller, more expensive and risk-averse manned fleets. Smaller states could field swarms of capable drones, challenging the air dominance that a handful of major powers have long taken for granted.

On current battlefields, elements of that future are already visible. Turkish-made drones have played high-profile roles in conflicts from Libya and Syria to Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine, giving mid-sized militaries a taste of cheap, persistent air surveillance and strike power. Bayraktar notes that new generations of systems are moving beyond remote piloting toward higher degrees of autonomy, including AI-driven navigation, target recognition and coordinated swarm tactics. For ground troops and civilians below, the effect is a sky that can watch, decide and attack with minimal human input.

Yet Bayraktar tempers his technological enthusiasm with a stark warning about the trajectory of militarization. He says that “just a few hundred kilometers from here, a genocide is taking place” and that “there is no international institution to stop it,” arguing that “the institutions are finished. The rules are finished.” As a manufacturer of drones, including cheap loitering munitions he describes as “kamikaze,” he acknowledges that these weapons lower the threshold for the use of force and risk making violence more automated and less accountable.

The strategic implications are wider than any single theater. If AI-enabled drones can perform most missions of manned fighters — air defense suppression, ground attack, even air-to-air engagements — at a fraction of the cost, then air power becomes less the preserve of wealthy coalitions and more accessible to regional players and, potentially, non-state actors. Traditional deterrence models built on small numbers of exquisite jets and pilots may erode, replaced by calculations about who can field and replace thousands of autonomous systems in a prolonged conflict.

The underlying insight is unsettling: autonomy and cheap mass do not just change how wars are fought; they change who can afford to fight in the first place. A world in which robots dominate the skies may reduce the immediate risk to pilots but raise the risk to everyone on the ground, as political leaders weigh decisions measured less in pilots’ lives and more in the price of silicon and composite.

Key signals to watch are how quickly major air forces begin to cap or shrink their manned fighter fleets in favor of unmanned systems, whether international law and arms control regimes start to grapple with fully autonomous lethal drones, and how export controls respond to demand from states seeking cheaper air power. If Bayraktar’s 30-year timeline proves accurate, the choices made in the next decade about doctrine, regulation and proliferation will shape not just future dogfights, but the threshold for war itself.