Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just to add to this, radio-controlled drones are also still used, it's just that those are relatively easy to jam while the fiber-optic ones aren't and that makes them very difficult to defend against. Also, to my understanding, jamming works best against smaller, First Person View quadcopter-style drones that have a limited range and carry only limited firepower (e.g. one grenade basically) and are often used agains…
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 dro…
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.