3 ms·
I dearly hope that the Western cultural fractures don't turn into this. In any case, this is unlikely to spell victory for the belligerent who chooses this rou
by squirrelicus 8y ago
I dearly hope that the Western cultural fractures don't turn into this.
In any case, this is unlikely to spell victory for the belligerent who chooses this route. Humans are cheaper than self driving military trucks. You can afford to lose them. Literally-literally.
It's only in our cushy relative world peace situation we find ourselves entertaining the idea of spending a million dollars on a truck is somehow cheaper than losing a ten thousand dollar truck with 6 men on it.
- nostrademons 8y agoI also dearly hope that Western cultural fractures don't turn into this. And no, humans are not cheaper than self-driving trucks. They appear so at the beginning of a conflict because wars usually start when there's an excess of humans and a shortage of resources for them all. However, it takes 18 years to grow a human to the point where they can fight in a war, and another year or two to train them. It takes 2-3 years to tool up a factory to produce drones & self-driving trucks (and maybe a decade to get the software right), but once you do, you can produce one every couple days. Assuming you can maintain your industrial & technological base long enough to get that factory up, guess which one is going to win? The limiting factor for the Japanese in WW2 wasn't planes, it was trained pilots - they had no problem crashing the planes into ships with untrained pilots because those were both abundant resources, but were incapable of fighting a sustainable air war.