11 ms·

The case for declaring armed and fully autonomous drone swarms as WMD

154 points by atdrummond 6y ago

trhway 6y ago
>Banning AFADS from use in outer space and the seabed may have secondary national-security benefits, such as reducing the risk from drone swarms to sea-based nuclear forces. big guys from the elite nuke wielding club naturally wouldn't want small guys being able to threaten them. Reminds this saying "God created men equal. Colonel Colt made them equal."
- mc32 6y ago
  I’m sorry but big guys aren’t much threatened by this. They can squash any upstart in a blink. It’s the instability it brings along with future potential among the big players that’s of concern.
  - trhway 6y ago
    > They can squash any upstart in a blink. exactly. That makes for a very unstable situation as any small guy without credible ability to respond can become a prey at any moment. > It’s the instability it brings along with future potential among the big players that’s of concern. Historical experience shows that MAD brings stability. Compare the fate of North Korea vs. Libya, Iraq, Ukraine, etc.
    - mc32 6y ago
      But it means they have to waste resources to keep up, else instability becomes concerning.
- cryptonector 6y ago
  Would you prefer every nation of note have nukes and delivery capabilities? Because it sounds like you would prefer that. If every nation has nukes, plausible deniability for suitcase nukes goes out the window, and, with it, MAD. That's a guarantee that nukes will then be used.
  - zxcmx 6y ago
    Well that's irony right? If Iraq had actually had credible WMDs they would never have been invaded. Not like these lessons have been lost on North Korea or Iran. There's the things the international community says about nukes on one hand, and there's how they actually treat you when you don't have them on the other. The realpolitik view is that you don't have actual sovereignty without nukes. In my opinion this is why the U.K. for example (which, let's be honest, doesn't really have any practical use for the damn things and wastes a lot of money on them) is nuclear armed.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_United_Nations_Security_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_Unite... Realpolitik says Airstrip One gets a better deal from Oceania with that veto; otherwise it could only hope to get treated as well as, say, Japan. (aren't you all impeding the free market by preferring unchlorinated chicken?)
    - cryptonector 6y ago
      Non-sequitur. I did not and do not deny that nukes buy you immunity from conventional attacks -- they clearly do. I said that too many countries having them will lead to their being used with plausible deniability. Got an answer to that?
      - zxcmx 6y ago
        Agree we're talking past each other a bit. Sorry. I agree with you that proliferation is bad, but I'd like to elaborate. Summarising as I see it: OP's point was that WMDs (of all kinds) are an equalizer between nations. Your response was that nuclear proliferation creates instability. You also I think unfairly characterised OP's position as being pro-nuclear proliferation. You assumed OP was talking about nukes but I believe they were making a broader point. My response to you was that nuclear anti-proliferation efforts create a kind of hegemony where dominant nations get cemented in power forever. For the record, I'm also anti-nuclear-proliferation, but I wanted to point out that from the point of view of anyone not under the protective nuclear umbrella of a dominant nation there's a heavy element of hypocrisy involved. Circling back around to drones, I can see why the U.S. might want to restrict them or classify them as WMDs. I think the following is where OP was coming from: They have the potential to undermine conventional power and effectively turn war into a competition of mass cheap manufacturing capability. It's not at all clear in 2020 that the U.S. (in particular) would be able to dominate in such a situation. They're super hard to regulate in the sense that a nation aligned to a major manufacturing power could acquire or stockpile them in massive quantities with little oversight. It would create a possibly surprising shift in power where the U.S. might not be able to project conventional force into areas where they would normally expect to be able to do that. They're also tricky in terms of message management (big part of warfare) because when used defensively, a nuclear response to them is not politically credible. So you can't use the big stick. This doesn't create nuclear instability but it does create "instability" in the sense that it has the potential to shift the balance of power for the existing nuclear and conventional hegemony. Which I think was the crux of the OP's original point.
mc32 6y ago
I think it’s a pretty good case. But it’s also iffy. I mean you could say an army corps armed with machine guns are capable of destroying half a city or a column of tanks is capable of destroying half a city too. But I think the autonomous part and the fact capabilities will keep ratcheting up and more actors enter the arena make it a type of WMD. WMD is characterized by the low effort needed to sew massive destruction (and inability to distinguish civilians from military) once you have the tech —but getting the tech can be difficult. A full invasion army takes effort. A swarm of drones once you have the tech, is not much effort.
- hnick 6y ago
  It's a bit like a botnet. 3 killer drones probably isn't a WMD. Maybe 100 is. 10,000, yeah I think so. Thought there wouldn't be a whole lot of destruction like older weapons. Maybe it's more of a WMM (M is for Murder). Thought experiment: What's the MVP for killer drones? Single use explosives like the Slaughterbots video? Or are there viable reusable weapons systems on drones that fit in your hand?
  - Hello71 6y ago
    that doesn't seem like a useful definition. by that logic, any sufficiently large army is a "WMD", basically rendering the term meaningless.
    - nsajko 6y ago
      Not sure that "weapon of mass destruction" is itself a useful term, but you are wrong because an army (composed of people) is not a weapon.
      - mc32 6y ago
        To be fair the swarms themselves without payload are also not weapons. It’s the capability to carry weapons autonomously in great swarms coupled with an inability to only target military installations/personnel. Obviously depending on the type of drone traditional WMDs could be deployed with them.
iaw 6y ago
While fiction (and not the most realistic) there is a scene with a drone swarm in 'Angel Has Fallen' that hints at the potential lethality of autonomous swarms.
jessriedel 6y ago
Based on my quick reading, the article fails to establish that autonomous drones are actually a clearly defined category about which treaties could plausibly be enforced. The WMD category is not just about indiscriminate destruction, it's also crucially about being able to cleanly distinguish WMDs from non-WMDs. Biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons are, with only a few exceptions, fairly precise categories. (Part of the criticism of bunker-buster nuclear bombs is that they risked blurring the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons.) How often does a remote operator need to check in with a drone for it to no longer be "fully autonomous"? How many such drones could the operator be monitoring at once? How many drones constitute a swarm? A sovereign power can plausibly regulate blurry categories by just picking arbitrary but clearly defined cut-offs, e.g., the difference between a moped and a motorcycle is defined as an engine with a certain number of cc's. But this is a lot harder when you need to get dozens of different countries to all agree on a rule. International law is more dependent than domestic law on appealing to clear moral boundaries, since there is no higher earthly power to appeal to.
- gaukes 6y ago
  Also, what number of drones. At why point does a swarm become a WMD? To me, it’s more about intelligence than numbers. You could have a single rocket but if it’s smart enough to evade enemy defenses, that rocket could level a city.
  - gowld 6y ago
    How could a non-nuclear rocket do that?
    - arethuza 6y ago
      You'd need an awful lot of them - London had about 500 hits by German V2 rockets which didn't have any appreciable impact on the course of the war.
  - gonzo41 6y ago
    Only if that rocket had a nuclear bomb on it. You'd be surprised how not powerful individual bits of munitions are. Sure a 2000 pound bomb sounds scary. But they work really well against point targets. Cities are not point targets. https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/air-strikes/close-up-view-of-2000lb-jdam-strike/3744533948001 https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/air-s...
cityzen 6y ago
Pretty much the premise of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint: Prior to the events of the game, Skell Technology comes under increasing public scrutiny when they are faced with mounting evidence that its products are falling into the hands of corrupt regimes, whilst its technology is implicated in an assassination of a political candidate by an armed drone.[c] The situation escalates further when the USS Seay, an American cargo ship sinks off the coast of the Auroa archipelago and all contact with both the island and its inhabitants are subsequently cut off from the outside world. Determined to investigate the cause, CIA Deputy Director Peter Miles initiates Operation Greenstone, deploying a Ghost Recon platoon from the USS Wasp to re-establish contact with Auroa and determine the circumstances of the Seay's sinking. The insertion ends in disaster when the helicopters carrying the platoon to the island are attacked by a swarm of drones. Nomad is the sole able-bodied survivor of his squadmates, whilst Holt is seriously injured in the crash, and Midas is missing in action. Shortly after obtaining a weapon and attempting to find a working radio to communicate with the Wasp, Nomad witnesses a firefight between several Ghosts led by Weaver and multiple unidentified individuals. The firefight abruptly ends when Weaver is executed by Cole Walker, a former member of the Ghosts who is now leading the assault force, known as the "Wolves." Additionally, Nomad discovers a private military company called Sentinel is also operating on the island alongside the Wolves. Eventually, Nomad manages to reach Erewhon, a secret mountain hideout that is kept hidden from both Sentinel as well as the Wolves. With the assistance of ex-U.S. Marine Mads Schulz, Erewhon's de facto leader and his wife Maria, Nomad learns that the drone swarms that ambushed the platoon have imposed a defensive perimeter around the island; preventing anyone from entering or leaving the Archipelago. To help bring down the drones protecting the island, Nomad works with another survivor, fellow Ghost Recon Sergeant Major Josiah Hill and is instructed to locate Maurice Fox, Skell Tech's chief mathematician, his daughter Harmony, and eventually Jace Skell himself. Upon reaching Skell, Nomad discovers that Hill has been secretly working with Walker and the two offer Nomad a place by their side. Nomad refuses and manages to evacuate Skell to Erewhon.
01100011 6y ago
We should be thinking about all sorts of ways in which autonomous systems can create a whole new style of warfare. The combination of deep learning and targetted weaponry create extremely efficient killing machines. "Off the shelf" lasers combined with facial recognition, actuators and cameras could permanently blind a battalion in seconds, before anyone even had time to know what was going on. I think it's only a matter of time before we see 'dazzlers' used both on and off the battlefield.
- chongli 6y ago
  Blinding laser weapons are already forbidden by UN protocol [1]. Any country employing them would open themselves up to prosecution for war crimes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea...
  - gowld 6y ago
    People fighting wars don't care about the UN Police.
    - chongli 6y ago
      Tell that to Slobodan Milosevic [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milošević https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milošević
      - augustt 6y ago
        Maybe it would be more accurate to say the winners don't care about war crimes.
      - cryptonector 6y ago
        Well, he didn't care before and during the war, did he.
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ICC_member_states.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ICC_member_states.svg (it seems unlikely anyone should be concerned that the Vatican isn't a signatory)
virtualritz 6y ago
"Weapon Systems of the Twenty First Century or the Upside-Down Evolution" by Stanisław Lem (1986).
armatav 6y ago
I think there would be absolutely no possible way to restrict drone technology of this kind, and so the article is built on an irrelevant foundation. Nuclear weapons are restrictive because the enrichment process is difficult. Biological weapons are restrictive because the cultivation process is difficult. Drones are easy, machine learning is becoming more approachable for every person in civilized society. Better to make a counter-drone-swarm technology company than worry about what regulators are going to do when a terrorist cell starts to manufacture killer drones - you cannot stop that with regulation, you can only stop that with your own drone swarm. This is a new age of war, and if free society is to stand a chance it needs to develop and research countermeasures for this sort of stuff - classification and regulation is meaningless as deterrence.
- deathgrips 6y ago
  But what about all the nuclear weapons that were disabled because we asked nicely?
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    that treaty is getting close to expiration
    - SiempreViernes 6y ago
      NewSTART is being intentionally scrapped is more accurate description, since there are provisions for automatically renewing it for five more years that the Trump administration are just neglecting to use.
- taneq 6y ago
  Biological weapons are more restricted by the fact that they're impossible to control, and so using an effective one is a suicide mission. Honestly I find them far scarier than the other two because as technology improves, it's becoming easier and easier to build designer diseases in a back yard lab.
Havoc 6y ago
The whole WMD classification distracts here I think. Plus nobody is stuffing this genie back in its bottle. Unlike nuclear or chemical it doesn't require a complicated precursor and is much easier to sell as "well be careful OK". Think about it...your Roomba cleans your floor autonomously and your kid has a 100 buck drone as a toy. Yeah some pieces of the swarming puzzle are missing but give it a year or three and even that is will be widespread. Meanwhile Trump is rolling back mutual agreements, Putin is posturing as usual and China is building drones faster than anyone else (see toy above). This horse bolted years ago
- imtringued 6y ago
  Human control over weapons is the only reasons why humans have power. If you cut out humans from the loop they just turn back into mere animals.
Robotbeat 6y ago
Mines are basically non-mobile versions of these.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  marine mine delivery is done by JDAM these days ... no idea how non-mobile the mines themselves may still be
blitmap 6y ago
I'm not sure how contributory to the discussion this is, but I love watching this short every couple years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMNIFZTQkg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMNIFZTQkg (I love it in the sense that I'd love a dystopian scifi movie, but not a reality like this)
graton 6y ago
I was surprised to learn that by US Law a grenade is considered a WMD. Which is not what I thought of when I hear the term Weapon of Mass Destruction. https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/wmd https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/wmd A WMD is defined by U.S. law as any of the following: * A destructive device, such as an explosive or incendiary bomb, rocket, or grenade; * A weapon that is designed to cause death or serious injury through toxic or poisonous chemicals; * A weapon that contains a biological agent or toxin; or * A weapon that is designed to release dangerous levels of radiation or radioactivity.
- nexuist 6y ago
  A grenade is not that different from a bomb, and although most grenades have a relatively small blast radius, there's nothing stopping you from making really big grenades (at which point the main differentiator between it and a bomb is the integrated timed fuse).
  - closetohome 6y ago
    I was kind of shocked to find that US law defines it as "any destructive device" and goes on to define that as "having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce." Which is 1/26th the explosive in an M67 grenade. 1/4oz is more like a couple of M80s stuck together. As someone else said, this is presumably so they can charge people with terrorism for using basically any kind of explosive. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title18/pdf/USCODE-2010-title18-partI-chap113B-sec2332a.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title18/pdf/... https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title18-section921&num=0&edition=prelim https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim...
fuckcommies 6y ago
FUCK COMMIES!
cryptonector 6y ago
Well, these drone swarms would have to be solar, and possibly have downtime, be easy to shoot down, vulnerable to jamming perhaps, etc. As long as there's a counter, it's not that bad. Still, I'm surprised the U.S. isn't going more for this than, say, the F-35. Anyways, how would you verify that signatories don't have drone swarms and can't make and deploy them quickly even if they don't have them? It seems to me that verification is practically impossible.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I personally love the idea of a drone swarm flying over the ocean. All of them will run out of battery after 15 min and then disappear into the ocean.
082349872349872 6y ago
This puts a new light on Wuhan thanking their doctors and nurses with a big drone show instead of jet flybys.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
imtringued 6y ago
A fully autonomous drone might sound cool because they are less prone to jamming but they essentially threaten the concept of human sovereignty. Unless there is a human to supervise them and provide targeting data they shouldn't exist. The reason why the AI control problem is dangerous is that it assumes that the AI can project force beyond the ability of a human army.
credit_guy 6y ago
The devil is in the details. Here's some legitimate drone swarm military applications that wouldn't qualify as WMD: * reconnaissance drone swarms; the drones can be as small as a hummingbird, but they can also be larger; their "weapon" is their camera. * armed drone swarms aimed for saturation attacks against military naval assets. * armed drone swarms for area denial. Think defense of a large uninhabited border area between Russia and China. If you detect a mass of tanks crossing the border and send a drone swarm to kill everything in that area, the danger of killing non-combatants is nil
Symmetry 6y ago
We don't have a good track record of successfully banning weapons that are useful to major powers. https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
cabite 6y ago
What about this: A swarm of non lethal drones equipped with 3D/depth cameras that collaborate in order to establish a dynamic 3D map of the terrain. A user consuming data from the swarm would enjoy a live "God's view" on what actually happens in reality, but through a 3D view displayed on a screen, very much like in Starcraft but without an artificial "fog of war". This isn't a weapon of mass destruction nor a weapon in the classical meaning of the word. But is this a weapon system, i.e. a system meant to ensure or enhance a weapon's function, such as targeting and guidance ?
- nexuist 6y ago
  This already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS I think you would be hard pressed to classify cameras as weapons. No one is being harmed by the action of taking a picture - you would have to introduce a separate weapon, such as a missile or gun, to cause any damage, and those are all governed by existing regulations.

154 points by atdrummond 6y ago

>Banning AFADS from use in outer space and the seabed may have secondary national-security benefits, such as reducing the risk from drone swarms to sea-based nuclear forces. big guys from the elite nuke wielding club naturally wouldn't want small guys being able to threaten them. Reminds this saying "God created men equal. Colonel Colt made them equal."

mc32 6y ago
I’m sorry but big guys aren’t much threatened by this. They can squash any upstart in a blink. It’s the instability it brings along with future potential among the big players that’s of concern.
- trhway 6y ago
  > They can squash any upstart in a blink. exactly. That makes for a very unstable situation as any small guy without credible ability to respond can become a prey at any moment. > It’s the instability it brings along with future potential among the big players that’s of concern. Historical experience shows that MAD brings stability. Compare the fate of North Korea vs. Libya, Iraq, Ukraine, etc.
  - mc32 6y ago
    But it means they have to waste resources to keep up, else instability becomes concerning.
cryptonector 6y ago
Would you prefer every nation of note have nukes and delivery capabilities? Because it sounds like you would prefer that. If every nation has nukes, plausible deniability for suitcase nukes goes out the window, and, with it, MAD. That's a guarantee that nukes will then be used.
- zxcmx 6y ago
  Well that's irony right? If Iraq had actually had credible WMDs they would never have been invaded. Not like these lessons have been lost on North Korea or Iran. There's the things the international community says about nukes on one hand, and there's how they actually treat you when you don't have them on the other. The realpolitik view is that you don't have actual sovereignty without nukes. In my opinion this is why the U.K. for example (which, let's be honest, doesn't really have any practical use for the damn things and wastes a lot of money on them) is nuclear armed.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_United_Nations_Security_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_Unite... Realpolitik says Airstrip One gets a better deal from Oceania with that veto; otherwise it could only hope to get treated as well as, say, Japan. (aren't you all impeding the free market by preferring unchlorinated chicken?)
  - cryptonector 6y ago
    Non-sequitur. I did not and do not deny that nukes buy you immunity from conventional attacks -- they clearly do. I said that too many countries having them will lead to their being used with plausible deniability. Got an answer to that?
    - zxcmx 6y ago
      Agree we're talking past each other a bit. Sorry. I agree with you that proliferation is bad, but I'd like to elaborate. Summarising as I see it: OP's point was that WMDs (of all kinds) are an equalizer between nations. Your response was that nuclear proliferation creates instability. You also I think unfairly characterised OP's position as being pro-nuclear proliferation. You assumed OP was talking about nukes but I believe they were making a broader point. My response to you was that nuclear anti-proliferation efforts create a kind of hegemony where dominant nations get cemented in power forever. For the record, I'm also anti-nuclear-proliferation, but I wanted to point out that from the point of view of anyone not under the protective nuclear umbrella of a dominant nation there's a heavy element of hypocrisy involved. Circling back around to drones, I can see why the U.S. might want to restrict them or classify them as WMDs. I think the following is where OP was coming from: They have the potential to undermine conventional power and effectively turn war into a competition of mass cheap manufacturing capability. It's not at all clear in 2020 that the U.S. (in particular) would be able to dominate in such a situation. They're super hard to regulate in the sense that a nation aligned to a major manufacturing power could acquire or stockpile them in massive quantities with little oversight. It would create a possibly surprising shift in power where the U.S. might not be able to project conventional force into areas where they would normally expect to be able to do that. They're also tricky in terms of message management (big part of warfare) because when used defensively, a nuclear response to them is not politically credible. So you can't use the big stick. This doesn't create nuclear instability but it does create "instability" in the sense that it has the potential to shift the balance of power for the existing nuclear and conventional hegemony. Which I think was the crux of the OP's original point.

mc32 6y ago

I think it’s a pretty good case. But it’s also iffy. I mean you could say an army corps armed with machine guns are capable of destroying half a city or a column of tanks is capable of destroying half a city too. But I think the autonomous part and the fact capabilities will keep ratcheting up and more actors enter the arena make it a type of WMD. WMD is characterized by the low effort needed to sew massive destruction (and inability to distinguish civilians from military) once you have the tech —but getting the tech can be difficult. A full invasion army takes effort. A swarm of drones once you have the tech, is not much effort.

hnick 6y ago
It's a bit like a botnet. 3 killer drones probably isn't a WMD. Maybe 100 is. 10,000, yeah I think so. Thought there wouldn't be a whole lot of destruction like older weapons. Maybe it's more of a WMM (M is for Murder). Thought experiment: What's the MVP for killer drones? Single use explosives like the Slaughterbots video? Or are there viable reusable weapons systems on drones that fit in your hand?
- Hello71 6y ago
  that doesn't seem like a useful definition. by that logic, any sufficiently large army is a "WMD", basically rendering the term meaningless.
  - nsajko 6y ago
    Not sure that "weapon of mass destruction" is itself a useful term, but you are wrong because an army (composed of people) is not a weapon.
    - mc32 6y ago
      To be fair the swarms themselves without payload are also not weapons. It’s the capability to carry weapons autonomously in great swarms coupled with an inability to only target military installations/personnel. Obviously depending on the type of drone traditional WMDs could be deployed with them.

iaw 6y ago

While fiction (and not the most realistic) there is a scene with a drone swarm in 'Angel Has Fallen' that hints at the potential lethality of autonomous swarms.

jessriedel 6y ago

Based on my quick reading, the article fails to establish that autonomous drones are actually a clearly defined category about which treaties could plausibly be enforced. The WMD category is not just about indiscriminate destruction, it's also crucially about being able to cleanly distinguish WMDs from non-WMDs. Biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons are, with only a few exceptions, fairly precise categories. (Part of the criticism of bunker-buster nuclear bombs is that they risked blurring the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons.) How often does a remote operator need to check in with a drone for it to no longer be "fully autonomous"? How many such drones could the operator be monitoring at once? How many drones constitute a swarm? A sovereign power can plausibly regulate blurry categories by just picking arbitrary but clearly defined cut-offs, e.g., the difference between a moped and a motorcycle is defined as an engine with a certain number of cc's. But this is a lot harder when you need to get dozens of different countries to all agree on a rule. International law is more dependent than domestic law on appealing to clear moral boundaries, since there is no higher earthly power to appeal to.

gaukes 6y ago
Also, what number of drones. At why point does a swarm become a WMD? To me, it’s more about intelligence than numbers. You could have a single rocket but if it’s smart enough to evade enemy defenses, that rocket could level a city.
- gowld 6y ago
  How could a non-nuclear rocket do that?
  - arethuza 6y ago
    You'd need an awful lot of them - London had about 500 hits by German V2 rockets which didn't have any appreciable impact on the course of the war.
- gonzo41 6y ago
  Only if that rocket had a nuclear bomb on it. You'd be surprised how not powerful individual bits of munitions are. Sure a 2000 pound bomb sounds scary. But they work really well against point targets. Cities are not point targets. https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/air-strikes/close-up-view-of-2000lb-jdam-strike/3744533948001 https://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/air-s...

cityzen 6y ago

Pretty much the premise of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Breakpoint: Prior to the events of the game, Skell Technology comes under increasing public scrutiny when they are faced with mounting evidence that its products are falling into the hands of corrupt regimes, whilst its technology is implicated in an assassination of a political candidate by an armed drone.[c] The situation escalates further when the USS Seay, an American cargo ship sinks off the coast of the Auroa archipelago and all contact with both the island and its inhabitants are subsequently cut off from the outside world. Determined to investigate the cause, CIA Deputy Director Peter Miles initiates Operation Greenstone, deploying a Ghost Recon platoon from the USS Wasp to re-establish contact with Auroa and determine the circumstances of the Seay's sinking. The insertion ends in disaster when the helicopters carrying the platoon to the island are attacked by a swarm of drones. Nomad is the sole able-bodied survivor of his squadmates, whilst Holt is seriously injured in the crash, and Midas is missing in action. Shortly after obtaining a weapon and attempting to find a working radio to communicate with the Wasp, Nomad witnesses a firefight between several Ghosts led by Weaver and multiple unidentified individuals. The firefight abruptly ends when Weaver is executed by Cole Walker, a former member of the Ghosts who is now leading the assault force, known as the "Wolves." Additionally, Nomad discovers a private military company called Sentinel is also operating on the island alongside the Wolves. Eventually, Nomad manages to reach Erewhon, a secret mountain hideout that is kept hidden from both Sentinel as well as the Wolves. With the assistance of ex-U.S. Marine Mads Schulz, Erewhon's de facto leader and his wife Maria, Nomad learns that the drone swarms that ambushed the platoon have imposed a defensive perimeter around the island; preventing anyone from entering or leaving the Archipelago. To help bring down the drones protecting the island, Nomad works with another survivor, fellow Ghost Recon Sergeant Major Josiah Hill and is instructed to locate Maurice Fox, Skell Tech's chief mathematician, his daughter Harmony, and eventually Jace Skell himself. Upon reaching Skell, Nomad discovers that Hill has been secretly working with Walker and the two offer Nomad a place by their side. Nomad refuses and manages to evacuate Skell to Erewhon.

01100011 6y ago

We should be thinking about all sorts of ways in which autonomous systems can create a whole new style of warfare. The combination of deep learning and targetted weaponry create extremely efficient killing machines. "Off the shelf" lasers combined with facial recognition, actuators and cameras could permanently blind a battalion in seconds, before anyone even had time to know what was going on. I think it's only a matter of time before we see 'dazzlers' used both on and off the battlefield.

chongli 6y ago
Blinding laser weapons are already forbidden by UN protocol [1]. Any country employing them would open themselves up to prosecution for war crimes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea...
- gowld 6y ago
  People fighting wars don't care about the UN Police.
  - chongli 6y ago
    Tell that to Slobodan Milosevic [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milošević https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milošević
    - augustt 6y ago
      Maybe it would be more accurate to say the winners don't care about war crimes.
    - cryptonector 6y ago
      Well, he didn't care before and during the war, did he.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ICC_member_states.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ICC_member_states.svg (it seems unlikely anyone should be concerned that the Vatican isn't a signatory)

virtualritz 6y ago

"Weapon Systems of the Twenty First Century or the Upside-Down Evolution" by Stanisław Lem (1986).

armatav 6y ago

I think there would be absolutely no possible way to restrict drone technology of this kind, and so the article is built on an irrelevant foundation. Nuclear weapons are restrictive because the enrichment process is difficult. Biological weapons are restrictive because the cultivation process is difficult. Drones are easy, machine learning is becoming more approachable for every person in civilized society. Better to make a counter-drone-swarm technology company than worry about what regulators are going to do when a terrorist cell starts to manufacture killer drones - you cannot stop that with regulation, you can only stop that with your own drone swarm. This is a new age of war, and if free society is to stand a chance it needs to develop and research countermeasures for this sort of stuff - classification and regulation is meaningless as deterrence.

deathgrips 6y ago
But what about all the nuclear weapons that were disabled because we asked nicely?
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  that treaty is getting close to expiration
  - SiempreViernes 6y ago
    NewSTART is being intentionally scrapped is more accurate description, since there are provisions for automatically renewing it for five more years that the Trump administration are just neglecting to use.
taneq 6y ago
Biological weapons are more restricted by the fact that they're impossible to control, and so using an effective one is a suicide mission. Honestly I find them far scarier than the other two because as technology improves, it's becoming easier and easier to build designer diseases in a back yard lab.

Havoc 6y ago

The whole WMD classification distracts here I think. Plus nobody is stuffing this genie back in its bottle. Unlike nuclear or chemical it doesn't require a complicated precursor and is much easier to sell as "well be careful OK". Think about it...your Roomba cleans your floor autonomously and your kid has a 100 buck drone as a toy. Yeah some pieces of the swarming puzzle are missing but give it a year or three and even that is will be widespread. Meanwhile Trump is rolling back mutual agreements, Putin is posturing as usual and China is building drones faster than anyone else (see toy above). This horse bolted years ago

imtringued 6y ago
Human control over weapons is the only reasons why humans have power. If you cut out humans from the loop they just turn back into mere animals.

Robotbeat 6y ago

Mines are basically non-mobile versions of these.

082349872349872 6y ago
marine mine delivery is done by JDAM these days ... no idea how non-mobile the mines themselves may still be

blitmap 6y ago

I'm not sure how contributory to the discussion this is, but I love watching this short every couple years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMNIFZTQkg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMNIFZTQkg (I love it in the sense that I'd love a dystopian scifi movie, but not a reality like this)

graton 6y ago

I was surprised to learn that by US Law a grenade is considered a WMD. Which is not what I thought of when I hear the term Weapon of Mass Destruction. https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/wmd https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/wmd A WMD is defined by U.S. law as any of the following: * A destructive device, such as an explosive or incendiary bomb, rocket, or grenade; * A weapon that is designed to cause death or serious injury through toxic or poisonous chemicals; * A weapon that contains a biological agent or toxin; or * A weapon that is designed to release dangerous levels of radiation or radioactivity.

nexuist 6y ago
A grenade is not that different from a bomb, and although most grenades have a relatively small blast radius, there's nothing stopping you from making really big grenades (at which point the main differentiator between it and a bomb is the integrated timed fuse).
- closetohome 6y ago
  I was kind of shocked to find that US law defines it as "any destructive device" and goes on to define that as "having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce." Which is 1/26th the explosive in an M67 grenade. 1/4oz is more like a couple of M80s stuck together. As someone else said, this is presumably so they can charge people with terrorism for using basically any kind of explosive. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title18/pdf/USCODE-2010-title18-partI-chap113B-sec2332a.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title18/pdf/... https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title18-section921&num=0&edition=prelim https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim...

fuckcommies 6y ago

FUCK COMMIES!

cryptonector 6y ago

Well, these drone swarms would have to be solar, and possibly have downtime, be easy to shoot down, vulnerable to jamming perhaps, etc. As long as there's a counter, it's not that bad. Still, I'm surprised the U.S. isn't going more for this than, say, the F-35. Anyways, how would you verify that signatories don't have drone swarms and can't make and deploy them quickly even if they don't have them? It seems to me that verification is practically impossible.

imtringued 6y ago
I personally love the idea of a drone swarm flying over the ocean. All of them will run out of battery after 15 min and then disappear into the ocean.

082349872349872 6y ago

This puts a new light on Wuhan thanking their doctors and nurses with a big drone show instead of jet flybys.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

imtringued 6y ago

A fully autonomous drone might sound cool because they are less prone to jamming but they essentially threaten the concept of human sovereignty. Unless there is a human to supervise them and provide targeting data they shouldn't exist. The reason why the AI control problem is dangerous is that it assumes that the AI can project force beyond the ability of a human army.

credit_guy 6y ago

The devil is in the details. Here's some legitimate drone swarm military applications that wouldn't qualify as WMD: * reconnaissance drone swarms; the drones can be as small as a hummingbird, but they can also be larger; their "weapon" is their camera. * armed drone swarms aimed for saturation attacks against military naval assets. * armed drone swarms for area denial. Think defense of a large uninhabited border area between Russia and China. If you detect a mass of tanks crossing the border and send a drone swarm to kill everything in that area, the danger of killing non-combatants is nil

Symmetry 6y ago

We don't have a good track record of successfully banning weapons that are useful to major powers. https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

cabite 6y ago

What about this: A swarm of non lethal drones equipped with 3D/depth cameras that collaborate in order to establish a dynamic 3D map of the terrain. A user consuming data from the swarm would enjoy a live "God's view" on what actually happens in reality, but through a 3D view displayed on a screen, very much like in Starcraft but without an artificial "fog of war". This isn't a weapon of mass destruction nor a weapon in the classical meaning of the word. But is this a weapon system, i.e. a system meant to ensure or enhance a weapon's function, such as targeting and guidance ?

nexuist 6y ago
This already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS I think you would be hard pressed to classify cameras as weapons. No one is being harmed by the action of taking a picture - you would have to introduce a separate weapon, such as a missile or gun, to cause any damage, and those are all governed by existing regulations.