[FOX] Foundation Future Robotics, an Eric Trump-backed robotics company, became the first company to deploy humanoid robots to a combat zone when it sent its Phantom MK 1 robots to Ukraine in February.
Now in talks to ship more MK 1 units to Israel, expanding its war theater footprint, Foundation co-founder Mike LeBlanc sees a near future in which the majority of warfighting is done by robots.
"In the next five to 10 years, I would expect that humanoids, ground vehicles, drones, will be doing most of the major fighting, with humans really only doing special forces, special operations, small surgical operations on the side," LeBlanc, a former Marine Corps officer with three tours of duty in the Middle East, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
LeBlanc stressed that, while robotics companies have been creating both warfare drones and household humanoid robots, Foundation is the first company to create humanoid robots specifically for warfare.
The MK 1 units deployed to Ukraine have a roughly 88-pound carrying capacity, making their best fit in combat situations one of a supplementary role, assisting human soldiers with ordnance, munitions loading, manual labor and other ancillary tasks.
However, LeBlanc explained that the units were simply a "proof of concept" for the broader application of humanoid robots in war, claiming that Foundation is already close to shipping out the MK 2.
"It is 6 feet tall, 185 pounds, as I say, created in my own image," LeBlanc joked.
"But this thing is ready to engage by making small and medium machine guns, by engaging with enemies.
"The Mark II is going to be the biggest, fastest, strongest humanoid on the market. This robot is already able to pick me up. So, it's a much larger payload than anybody else. That allows us to do heavy industrial work, but it also lets us set up heavy machine guns, bullfrogs, etc.," LeBlanc told Fox News Digital.
LeBlanc said Ukraine will likely be the first place the MK 2 is deployed, a fitting testing ground, he explained, as the war between Ukraine and Russia is largely being fought by machines already.
"In Ukraine, robots are very much a question of today and today's battlefield," LeBlanc explained.
He then marveled at how quickly the combat environment has shifted, contrasting today’s battlefield with those he engaged in during his tours of duty.
"It's amazing how quickly things change. I was in Afghanistan in 2012, and then again in 2013. And, at that time, they would have very small drones that it was almost like you were looking through a toilet paper roll," LeBlanc told Fox News Digital.
"It was a very small supplementary tool. Today, when you go to Ukraine, it's actually drones first that are doing the fighting and the humans that are the small supplement," he said.
Still, LeBlanc did not see a future in which humans would become obsolete in warfare.
"I don't think you'll ever see a battlefield where you have no humans," he said.
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"I was just in New York at a fancy restaurant, and, you know, even there, the waiter had to come by because our table was unbalanced, and he put some napkins in the bottom to make sure that it didn't wobble," he said.
"We are a species of workarounds, and that's what has made humans so incredible is that we can adapt to just about any situation. And, so, I think that it's unlikely that we'll see a battlefield without any humans, but we should drastically see that number drop."
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