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It's funny how incredibly bad news this is. And it does seem like it's correct. > For example, the MobileNetV2 image classification network takes 22 million op

It's funny how incredibly bad news this is. And it does seem like it's correct. > For example, the MobileNetV2 image classification network takes 22 million ops ... 110 microwatts, which a coin battery could sustain continuously for nearly a year. So making a tiny mine that blows up if and only if it sees a particular person (or worse, a particular race or ...) is now theoretically possible and essentially a few hardware revisions away from being doable.

Daniel_sk 8y ago
This isn't taking the consumption of the camera into account. But of course there could be a PIR or other motion sensor (months of battery) that would launch the camera on-demand and then evaluate the target.
pvaldes 8y ago
The idea is thought-provoking, but would be another useless sink of tax money. 1-If the mine targets people from some race, then will attack your own soldiers, local allies and spies of the same race 2-Clothes and makeup are common to all human cultures. After a few strikes the people would learn how to blend in the landscape and avoid being taken by a target. 3-The system would need a sort of eye over the soil, detectable by human eyes and software, or a sort of wifi, detectable with software. 4-This "eye" part would be vulnerable to dust, leaves and debris falling over this eye. Something that happens very quickly at soil level in deserts, snowy areas and rainforests. 4-If the mine is inactivated until people of some colour appears, your enemies could use a disguise to take it safely and reuse the weapon in their own army. 5-Such mines could be modified to target presidents, military high commands, policemen or politicians, all easily distinguishable by their "feathers", well known bagdes, official uniforms... At this point, the project of a mine aiming to VIPS would be closed and deeply buried pretty fast.
- XorNot 8y ago
  Or just mine an entire area of someone else's country and walk away, like we do now. The problem with most of these ideas is that if you're willing to do it, you probably are willing to just shoot/explode/ethnically cleanse an area anyway. The question as always is better framed as "what does this enable that they couldn't do before?"
- MarkMMullin 8y ago
  You're missing the most horrible capability of this mine - when it sees its target, it could start chasing it
imtringued 8y ago
That's cute. I personally would be more worried about quadrocopter drones strapped with grenades that use face recognition to act autonomously, possibly without GPS to prevent jamming attacks.

Daniel_sk 8y ago

This isn't taking the consumption of the camera into account. But of course there could be a PIR or other motion sensor (months of battery) that would launch the camera on-demand and then evaluate the target.

pvaldes 8y ago

The idea is thought-provoking, but would be another useless sink of tax money. 1-If the mine targets people from some race, then will attack your own soldiers, local allies and spies of the same race 2-Clothes and makeup are common to all human cultures. After a few strikes the people would learn how to blend in the landscape and avoid being taken by a target. 3-The system would need a sort of eye over the soil, detectable by human eyes and software, or a sort of wifi, detectable with software. 4-This "eye" part would be vulnerable to dust, leaves and debris falling over this eye. Something that happens very quickly at soil level in deserts, snowy areas and rainforests. 4-If the mine is inactivated until people of some colour appears, your enemies could use a disguise to take it safely and reuse the weapon in their own army. 5-Such mines could be modified to target presidents, military high commands, policemen or politicians, all easily distinguishable by their "feathers", well known bagdes, official uniforms... At this point, the project of a mine aiming to VIPS would be closed and deeply buried pretty fast.

XorNot 8y ago
Or just mine an entire area of someone else's country and walk away, like we do now. The problem with most of these ideas is that if you're willing to do it, you probably are willing to just shoot/explode/ethnically cleanse an area anyway. The question as always is better framed as "what does this enable that they couldn't do before?"
MarkMMullin 8y ago
You're missing the most horrible capability of this mine - when it sees its target, it could start chasing it

imtringued 8y ago

That's cute. I personally would be more worried about quadrocopter drones strapped with grenades that use face recognition to act autonomously, possibly without GPS to prevent jamming attacks.