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that doesn't seem like a useful definition. by that logic, any sufficiently large army is a "WMD", basically rendering the term meaningless.
by 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 agoNot 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 agoTo 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.
- hnick 6y ago> inability to only target military installations/personnel. I think that's a good point that I missed. The "mass" part of it. But even if we coded drones to only target military, this could be turned off or changed. Maybe we need code signing and weapons inspectors before determining if a swarm is a WMD or not.
- hnick 6y agoMost would say an army isn't a weapon, it has weapons. (Edit: completely missed my chance for a composition-over-inheritance joke here!) Given that mass destruction can be performed, the distinction to me is whether the "WMD" is a weapon (and not a collection of weapons). Like a MIRV with many warheads, we consider that one WMD don't we? If instead it had thousands of drones in it, what's the difference?