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> Killer robots will be a great equalizer in the ability to create a nightmare hellscape I imagine most people here have already seen the Slaughterbots video:

> Killer robots will be a great equalizer in the ability to create a nightmare hellscape I imagine most people here have already seen the Slaughterbots video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA A more conventional type of attack would be using large numbers cheap cruise missiles. If you can make them for $20k each then $1bn would buy you 50,000 of them, which is probably a good deal more than the number of anti-aircraft missiles your adversary has, and certainly a lot more than their number of fighter aircraft. Therefore firing off a lot in one go would overload their defences and many would get through. If aimed at infrastructure target, they could cripple a country's economy, and how soon after that do people start starving?

jrochkind1 5y ago
I hadn't seen that video, thanks for pointing it out. Eh, the rest of the world would probably gang up on you at that point, it'd be pretty suicidal. I think a more likely scenario is killer robots are making the places that state and non-state actors already "get away" with turning into nightmares just that much more nightmarish, and that many more of them. Whether it's the USA in Afghanistan or what goes on in Sudan or Somalia. More and more places like that, which will be more and more nightmarish. Would the USA even have to "give up" on Afghanistan with that tech doing what the drones alone couldn't? But now also the smaller-budget actors like Somalian warlords get their go at it. It's gonna be great.
runnerup 5y ago
I believe "slaughterbots" may be able to better evade certain types of air defense (e.g. CIWS), in exchange for maybe being more susceptible to other types of air defense (EMP?). Additionally, hypothetical slaughterbots would have much lower civilian casualties.
- varelse 5y ago
  You just put up chicken wire and the slaughterbots get stuck. Most of these weapons have very low tech countermeasures. Where they're effective is when they're not expected. That might work once. https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-you-shouldnt-fear-slaughterbots https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-you-shouldnt-fear-slaughterbot...
  - runnerup 5y ago
    Maybe. The 'slaughterbots' of the future as depicted use explosives to blow holes in buildings. I'd imagine they could arrange multiple in a circle to blow an arbitrarily large hole in fencing or netting. Also, usually chicken-wire fences just go around what's being protected, not necessarily over it (except for small farm animal enclosures, like actual chicken coops). It's hard for me to imagine entire buildings / neighborhoods / cities with chicken wire covering over the tops of the buildings in a way that couldn't be quickly breached with explosives. Or drones could unroll detcord in a circle against the fence as well.
    - varelse 5y ago
      If somebody were to pull off a slaughter bot attack there would suddenly be a hundred other countermeasures beyond chicken wire. Slaughterbots as portrayed here are as overhyped as full self driving and the AGI.

jrochkind1 5y ago

I hadn't seen that video, thanks for pointing it out. Eh, the rest of the world would probably gang up on you at that point, it'd be pretty suicidal. I think a more likely scenario is killer robots are making the places that state and non-state actors already "get away" with turning into nightmares just that much more nightmarish, and that many more of them. Whether it's the USA in Afghanistan or what goes on in Sudan or Somalia. More and more places like that, which will be more and more nightmarish. Would the USA even have to "give up" on Afghanistan with that tech doing what the drones alone couldn't? But now also the smaller-budget actors like Somalian warlords get their go at it. It's gonna be great.

runnerup 5y ago

I believe "slaughterbots" may be able to better evade certain types of air defense (e.g. CIWS), in exchange for maybe being more susceptible to other types of air defense (EMP?). Additionally, hypothetical slaughterbots would have much lower civilian casualties.

varelse 5y ago
You just put up chicken wire and the slaughterbots get stuck. Most of these weapons have very low tech countermeasures. Where they're effective is when they're not expected. That might work once. https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-you-shouldnt-fear-slaughterbots https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-you-shouldnt-fear-slaughterbot...
- runnerup 5y ago
  Maybe. The 'slaughterbots' of the future as depicted use explosives to blow holes in buildings. I'd imagine they could arrange multiple in a circle to blow an arbitrarily large hole in fencing or netting. Also, usually chicken-wire fences just go around what's being protected, not necessarily over it (except for small farm animal enclosures, like actual chicken coops). It's hard for me to imagine entire buildings / neighborhoods / cities with chicken wire covering over the tops of the buildings in a way that couldn't be quickly breached with explosives. Or drones could unroll detcord in a circle against the fence as well.
  - varelse 5y ago
    If somebody were to pull off a slaughter bot attack there would suddenly be a hundred other countermeasures beyond chicken wire. Slaughterbots as portrayed here are as overhyped as full self driving and the AGI.