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Slaughterbots was meant to be a video against such technology, but I'm 100% sure there are plenty of companies who are pointing at it and saying "This. Exactly

Slaughterbots was meant to be a video against such technology, but I'm 100% sure there are plenty of companies who are pointing at it and saying "This. Exactly this. This is what we want."

RealityVoid 5y ago
Is it really more terrifying somehow than a guy with a machine gun going and mowing down civilians? Or a maniac in a truck plowing in pedestrians. In effect, the other approaches are a lot more accessible to anyone.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Yes, because it can scale massively and it removes even the chance of a moral reconsideration on the part of the killer. With a human soldier there's at least a chance they'll decide to disobey an order to murder innocent people.
  - jrimbault 5y ago
    Isn't it the case that only 1 in X soldiers actually fires their weapon ? I think vaguely remember something to that effect.
    - RealityVoid 5y ago
      If you refer to the WW1 claim floating around, then it is most likely false. If you are talking about the fact modern military has many nore support ropes than combat roles, then... yeah, but that tells nothing about the willingness to fire a gun.
    - hnaccount_rng 5y ago
      Yeah about 8:1 in 2005 for the US https://acoup.blog/2022/04/22/fireside-friday-april-22-2022/ https://acoup.blog/2022/04/22/fireside-friday-april-22-2022/
    - pmoriarty 5y ago
      There's a book on this called On Killing by David Grossman.[1] "In World War II, only 15 to 20 percent of combat infantry were willing to fire their rifles. In Korea, about 50 percent. In Vietnam, the figure rose to more than 90 percent." [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-Society/dp/0316040932 https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-S...
    - heavenlyblue 5y ago
      I wonder what they start doing after enduring a single artillery barrage in a city. That must be horribly traumatising to see. I recently came back home from travels and realised that our neighbour’s car burned down(I live in London), and it just struck me how horrible it looks like. That’s after seeing many videos of total destruction in Ukraine. It just never popped into my mind how unusual it is to see something like that. That wasn’t even people dying, just practical realisation how not far we are from total civilisation collapse, if the majority of citizens wanted that.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    How could smart drones scale massively more than firearms and trucks? If anything, we see from the conflict in Ukraine that keeping smart weapons supplied in a modern conflict it a huge effort that needs a lot of interconnected players.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      One person can control, at most, about two guns and one truck at a time.
      - dougabug 5y ago
        > One person can control, at most, about two guns and one truck at a time. A really big gun, or missile (battery)…
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - lm28469 5y ago
      This isn't the same problem at all. The weapons we have trouble supplying are huge (howitzer with smart rounds, &c.) and require good roads and rails You could drop hundreds of autonomous drone by air, make them land somewhere and wait in standby until they get activated or detect a threat. They scale massively because 1 guy with 100 rifles won't do much more than 1 guy with 1 rifle, 1 guy with 100 trucks won't move faster than 1 guy with 1 truck. 0 guy with 100 drones would potentially kill 100 guys simultaneously for cheap since switchblade style drones are glorified DJIs with a grenade straped at the front
      - RealityVoid 5y ago
        I admit that control has the _possibility_ to scale well. Supply, on the contrary, it would be much harder to maintain.
        sangnoir 5y ago
- Razengan 5y ago
  Right now, what spooks you more: That a person with a gun is coming to kill you Or there are tiny machines floating outside your windows, in your vents, on your ceiling, ready to stab you with an undetectable poison the instant someone far away pushes a button.. Which do you think you have a better chance of spotting and defending against?
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    The answer is both are terrifying. If someone with a gun wants you dead, you die. I see no particular reason drones should be more terrifying than the other.
    - vba616 5y ago
      I'm picturing someone having trouble deciding who is the underdog in the original Terminator movie. Also this: https://xkcd.com/652/ https://xkcd.com/652/
  - asdff 5y ago
    Do you imagine that having these tiny machines deployed, maintained, and ready to go in disparate locations around the world is any easier than today where we have larger machines deployed, maintained, ready to go, but in fixed locations under tight control? I am more fearful of a missile silo, personally.
imtringued 5y ago
I'm pretty sure Slaughterbots was trying to provoke people into building DIY loitering munitions to prove the video wrong. The drones will be expensive, low in capability, can be intercepted (the video simply postulated that they can't be shot down by uh snipers?) and 99% of the time they will be controlled by humans. After all, being wrong on the internet is the best way to get a correct response. I am honestly more scared of chemical weapons and barrel bombs. You know, things that have actually been confirmed to have devastating impact in Syria. Somehow the typical hacker news commenter is worried about very precise robotic hit men operating in large groups to be used for indiscriminate killing when WW2 weapons were already enough to wipe out entire cities. You're more likely to have died from the atomic bombs deployed in Nagasaki or Hiroshima than from some tiny plastic drone with a 5 minute flight time. I mean think about a hypothetical nuclear weapon that kills everyone recognized via facial recognition in a 10 kilometer radius. Most bystanders aren't important enough to have their face on that database.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > Most bystanders aren't important enough to have their face on that database. If you have a drivers’ license or a passport, you’re in it. > WW2 weapons were already enough to wipe out entire cities Indiscriminately. Which gives you a big PR issue. Being able to kill only, say, every military-aged male in a city without touching anyone else is a bit different.
  - asdff 5y ago
    I don't think that would blow over any better for the international community. You'd basically be targeting college students and high schoolers.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Then adjust the criteria to "people who match a face in the hacked database from their military ID system", if you prefer.
      - 5y ago
tpoacher 5y ago
As the quote from the league of legends series goes: "Once it exists, a weapon will never be unmade, and it will be used."

Slaughterbots was meant to be a video against such technology, but I'm 100% sure there are plenty of companies who are pointing at it and saying "This. Exactly this. This is what we want."

RealityVoid 5y ago

Is it really more terrifying somehow than a guy with a machine gun going and mowing down civilians? Or a maniac in a truck plowing in pedestrians. In effect, the other approaches are a lot more accessible to anyone.

CalRobert 5y ago
Yes, because it can scale massively and it removes even the chance of a moral reconsideration on the part of the killer. With a human soldier there's at least a chance they'll decide to disobey an order to murder innocent people.
- jrimbault 5y ago
  Isn't it the case that only 1 in X soldiers actually fires their weapon ? I think vaguely remember something to that effect.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    If you refer to the WW1 claim floating around, then it is most likely false. If you are talking about the fact modern military has many nore support ropes than combat roles, then... yeah, but that tells nothing about the willingness to fire a gun.
  - hnaccount_rng 5y ago
    Yeah about 8:1 in 2005 for the US https://acoup.blog/2022/04/22/fireside-friday-april-22-2022/ https://acoup.blog/2022/04/22/fireside-friday-april-22-2022/
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    There's a book on this called On Killing by David Grossman.[1] "In World War II, only 15 to 20 percent of combat infantry were willing to fire their rifles. In Korea, about 50 percent. In Vietnam, the figure rose to more than 90 percent." [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-Society/dp/0316040932 https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-S...
  - heavenlyblue 5y ago
    I wonder what they start doing after enduring a single artillery barrage in a city. That must be horribly traumatising to see. I recently came back home from travels and realised that our neighbour’s car burned down(I live in London), and it just struck me how horrible it looks like. That’s after seeing many videos of total destruction in Ukraine. It just never popped into my mind how unusual it is to see something like that. That wasn’t even people dying, just practical realisation how not far we are from total civilisation collapse, if the majority of citizens wanted that.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  How could smart drones scale massively more than firearms and trucks? If anything, we see from the conflict in Ukraine that keeping smart weapons supplied in a modern conflict it a huge effort that needs a lot of interconnected players.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    One person can control, at most, about two guns and one truck at a time.
    - dougabug 5y ago
      > One person can control, at most, about two guns and one truck at a time. A really big gun, or missile (battery)…
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lm28469 5y ago
    This isn't the same problem at all. The weapons we have trouble supplying are huge (howitzer with smart rounds, &c.) and require good roads and rails You could drop hundreds of autonomous drone by air, make them land somewhere and wait in standby until they get activated or detect a threat. They scale massively because 1 guy with 100 rifles won't do much more than 1 guy with 1 rifle, 1 guy with 100 trucks won't move faster than 1 guy with 1 truck. 0 guy with 100 drones would potentially kill 100 guys simultaneously for cheap since switchblade style drones are glorified DJIs with a grenade straped at the front
    - RealityVoid 5y ago
      I admit that control has the _possibility_ to scale well. Supply, on the contrary, it would be much harder to maintain.
      - sangnoir 5y ago
Razengan 5y ago
Right now, what spooks you more: That a person with a gun is coming to kill you Or there are tiny machines floating outside your windows, in your vents, on your ceiling, ready to stab you with an undetectable poison the instant someone far away pushes a button.. Which do you think you have a better chance of spotting and defending against?
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  The answer is both are terrifying. If someone with a gun wants you dead, you die. I see no particular reason drones should be more terrifying than the other.
  - vba616 5y ago
    I'm picturing someone having trouble deciding who is the underdog in the original Terminator movie. Also this: https://xkcd.com/652/ https://xkcd.com/652/
- asdff 5y ago
  Do you imagine that having these tiny machines deployed, maintained, and ready to go in disparate locations around the world is any easier than today where we have larger machines deployed, maintained, ready to go, but in fixed locations under tight control? I am more fearful of a missile silo, personally.

imtringued 5y ago

I'm pretty sure Slaughterbots was trying to provoke people into building DIY loitering munitions to prove the video wrong. The drones will be expensive, low in capability, can be intercepted (the video simply postulated that they can't be shot down by uh snipers?) and 99% of the time they will be controlled by humans. After all, being wrong on the internet is the best way to get a correct response. I am honestly more scared of chemical weapons and barrel bombs. You know, things that have actually been confirmed to have devastating impact in Syria. Somehow the typical hacker news commenter is worried about very precise robotic hit men operating in large groups to be used for indiscriminate killing when WW2 weapons were already enough to wipe out entire cities. You're more likely to have died from the atomic bombs deployed in Nagasaki or Hiroshima than from some tiny plastic drone with a 5 minute flight time. I mean think about a hypothetical nuclear weapon that kills everyone recognized via facial recognition in a 10 kilometer radius. Most bystanders aren't important enough to have their face on that database.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> Most bystanders aren't important enough to have their face on that database. If you have a drivers’ license or a passport, you’re in it. > WW2 weapons were already enough to wipe out entire cities Indiscriminately. Which gives you a big PR issue. Being able to kill only, say, every military-aged male in a city without touching anyone else is a bit different.
- asdff 5y ago
  I don't think that would blow over any better for the international community. You'd basically be targeting college students and high schoolers.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Then adjust the criteria to "people who match a face in the hacked database from their military ID system", if you prefer.
    - 5y ago

tpoacher 5y ago

As the quote from the league of legends series goes: "Once it exists, a weapon will never be unmade, and it will be used."