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Everytime I see the Slaughterbots video posted, I roll my eyes. There are currently many weapons capable of VAST destruction, and suddenly _this_ is where we sh

Everytime I see the Slaughterbots video posted, I roll my eyes. There are currently many weapons capable of VAST destruction, and suddenly _this_ is where we should start drawing the line? If military drones were to become real and as capable as in the video, they would be hard to aquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. Besides that, yes, I do tend to believe that autonomous flying drones will play a large role in future conflicts. This dude I follow on Reddit thinks this based on what he is seeing going on in Ukraine[1]. I got sold on it as a possibility. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/15uimh0/credibledefense_daily_megathread_august_18_2023/jws1zm6/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/15uimh0/cr...

asah 3y ago
Today's news: https://globalpulsenews.com/putins-colonel-killed-in-drone-strike-while-mowing-lawn-at-his-russian-residence/ https://globalpulsenews.com/putins-colonel-killed-in-drone-s...
networkchad 3y ago
[dead]
Teever 3y ago
> they would be hard to aquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. How exactly? Are you expecting some sort of DRM in all commercial EDA and CAD software? Will opensource CAD and EDA software become illegal? Will customs search all packages from Chinese PCB manufacturers for illicit drone designs? Of course a nuclear weapon can kill more people than a drone swarm, but that's besides the point. What exactly does non-proliferation look like for drone swarms? What happens when the cost of a drone swarm drops to $10?
- bhhaskin 3y ago
  You don't need to worry about the drones themselves. The drones are useless without the explosive munitions. Good luck acquiring that without raising any flags. Not to mention somehow acquiring all the training data and ML modals to actually make them useful. Then there is the compute power that would be needed and coms infrastructure. it puts it firmly out of reach for anyone that isn't state sponsored. Not saying autonomous weapons won't/couldn't be an issue. just pointing out that drone swarms won't be.
  - yreg 3y ago
    What makes you sure that the ML models to actually make them useful won't be available on huggingface?
  - Teever 3y ago
    Improvised explosives are trivial to make, motivated people will find a way. If they can make meth, marijuana, or moonshine they can make explosives. The rest of the issues are mere technical speedbumps that industrious open source people will cruise over.
  - toss1 3y ago
    >>explosive munitions. Good luck acquiring that without raising any flags Not if you were a bit precocious in HC chemistry; I know my friends and I were not even close to alone in knowing all kinds of interesting fireworks recipes, all of which were well tested, and could be configured for anything from a small 'pop' to far more power than a slaughterbot. All from basic chemicals that can be easily be acquired without raising an eyebrow (could alternatively just repurpose a bullet/ shotgun shell, very easily obtained). The ability to put it right on target means that very little is needed. >>acquiring all the training data and ML modals to actually make them useful. Sure, if you are looking for fully ai-controlled and integrated with a city-wide CCTV system, that's a big task. But drone control and swarming is already out of the bag. Even a basic open-source Pixhawk does obstacle avoidance, and so can likely be reprogrammed for obstacle-targeting. Multiple off-the-shelf drones have done "follow-me" for years. I'd be astonished if a competent team with five-figure funding couldn't make a working system that could be deployed near a target, ID, it and home in. We're way past needing state funding. The fact that it is not here suggests that while the scenario is scary, it is not actually that useful? Perhaps that's hoping too much.
    - qup 3y ago
      I agree with all your points. I've been saying to my friends that I think one of the wealthy billionaires could possibly become a serious power. I think we can all agree Elon Musk could make this happen easily with his existing SpaceX people, and then build a bajillion of them with his Tesla people. I wonder how far EM could go if he went full evil, full throttle and tried to take over something [the world? a country?] with a drone fleet? Charging stations seems easily solved, so the drones never need direct human interaction. Terrifying.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  Consider that despite grenades being dropped from drones onto Russian soldiers in Ukraine on a daily basis, it happens to American civilians never despite America's extremely high homicide rate. This is due to a lack of grenades, not a lack of drones. The main thing gating slaughterbots from reality is the proliferation of the shaped explosive, not of the delivery mechanism.
  - Teever 3y ago
    Americans kill each other with guns because guns are cheap and plentiful, not because grenades are scarce. If guns were as scarce as frag grenades then it would be a competition between which one is more effective at killing and the availability wouldn't factor into the weapon choice at all. What you're telling me is that slaughterbots will be armed with guns that shoot bullets, not fragementation grenades.
    - margalabargala 3y ago
      Well, it's a bit more than that. People kill each other with whatever they have close at hand when they get into a fight; handguns are easily carried into a bar or on the street, which is why more people are killed with handguns than long rifles in America despite more of the latter existing. People aren't going to start carrying drones with propellers around in their pockets. It could be used by some people who want to do targeted killings, e.g. in gang violence, where it could be better than other methods maybe. But on the other hand, RC helicopters able to carry and shoot a gun have existed since at least 2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZCH1492CzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZCH1492CzA The number of people who actually want to kill lots of people without being physically present is extremely small; so small that in a country the size of the US, one only crops up every couple decades, e.g. Timothy McVeigh. I would make a solid bet that proliferation of cheap drones does not impact the homicide or terrorism rate in the US in either direction.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Grenades are low precision weapons that are relatively safe to use. Guns are high precision but very difficult to use in a firefight. If you watch Ukraine footage, soldiers barely even look where they’re shooting. They’re just trying to establish suppression over an area so that they can toss more grenades to kill people. That’s because both sides have guns. If you aren’t fighting an armed combatant to the death. The calculus changes a lot.
- RealityVoid 3y ago
  Because if you look around at sophisticated military hardware (which these drones, when they will exist, will be) it's all like that. I feel that the point our stances diverge is you feel these kind of weapons systems would become something a skilled hacker could make in a shed out of AliExpress parts for a 10$ bom, whereas I view it as being a complex weapon system that would be sophisticated and relies on battlefield infrastructure and complex supply chains to be feasible to properly deploy. I think if you look at cutting edge weapons, my belief is no hacker could build them in their garage, no matter how sophisticated. Hell, take a look at the pathetic state of "3d printed" weapons to see how I imagine DIY "slaughterbots" would look like. And acquiring the real weapons would not be easy at all. Heck, even now, if you want to acquire for your projects certain camera or heat sensors you have tons of hoops to jump through to get your hands on them. Besides, even IF it would be something a DIY-er could do, someone wanting to kill civilians would probably use the most effective tools, least resource intensive, least effort tool, least conspicuous to gather resources and this would not be it. Today any maniac can use a car to plow down civilians or get a gun and go on a rampage. That is low effort high impact. This would be a lot higher effort. Probably kind of the same impact.
  - varjag 3y ago
    FPV killer drones used in Ukraine now are really slapdash designs: often just motors on a flat fixture with a charge rubber-banded to it. They are used to devastating effect. The only part of this technology that is remotely possible to tackle on is proliferation of explosives.
    - RealityVoid 3y ago
      Fully agree. I mentioned in my original post I believe them to be very capable on a battlefield. But from there to slaughterbots like targeter drones there is a looong way. I believe my points still remain valid.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Explosives being squirreled away (and practically untraceable) by any number of actors in that theatre right now by the ton.
- coderenegade 3y ago
  The ordinance is controlled, and without that the system loses a lot of potency. Not to mention that without decent onboard AI, jamming is a pretty good countermeasure since target selection and much of the control input isn't actually done onboard the vehicle. Those seem like pretty large hurdles imo. Edit: and, as others mentioned, goods even tangentially related to defense are routinely controlled. In the extreme case, countries like the US would onshore manufacturing of certain components, acquisition would require licensing, and competing products from overseas would simply be banned.
  - Teever 3y ago
    What is so difficult about creating a small explosive that could take a chunk out of someones neck so they bleed out? > In the extreme case, countries like the US would onshore manufacturing of certain components, acquisition would require licensing, and competing products from overseas would simply be banned. Which parts exactly? the PCBs? The motors? the microcontrollers? the batteries? How would that work exactly? How do you regulate any of this without per component DRM? What would that look like exactly? Would I need a license to buy a child's toy that had a microcontroller in it? Would they nerf microcontrollers for devices like appliances and toys so taht they weren't fast enough to handle the needs of a drone?
    - coderenegade 3y ago
      Materials for making decent explosives are usually controlled. If you're talking homemade explosives, you probably aren't getting that on a quadrotor, or if you are, you're seriously compromising its performance. Bullets are controlled through licensing in most first world countries. If you wanted to control components going into homebuilt drones, you would probably target the guidance, since even basic waypoint navigation requires something to tell you where you are in relation to the target. To an extent this is already done with GPS (the true precision was classified last I checked, civilian uses are downgraded), but controlling manufacture and distribution of the stack would shut any kind of home robotics down while leaving a lot of channels untouched. If people wanted PCBs, fine, they just wouldn't be able to get certain sensors on them without a license. You don't need global DRM to control exports. It's routine for some industries. Of course, much of this is besides the point, because if someone really wants to hurt other people, they'll find a way. But the components to build a cruise missile in your backyard not only exist, they're mostly available COTS, but the critical parts like the payload are controlled. In some hypothetical future where AI drones became a threat, you can bet that the critical paths would be identified fairly quickly and locked down.
I_Am_Nous 3y ago
[Nah] Being afraid of automated, weaponized drones [!!!] Being afraid of social media enabling something like automated, weaponized drones This boogieman from the future is kind of overshadowing the fact that social media is already weaponized and used to harm people, and can be used in increasingly effective ways without the need for shaped charges or even physical objects.
trevor-e 3y ago
It's the precision and nimbleness that's scary to me compared to weapons capable of vast destruction.
soligern 3y ago
Vast destruction is almost never used because of the consequences and collateral damage. Surgical, cheap attacks would be used on an everyday basis. This is what makes it terrifying. It doesn’t even have to be murder, even surveillance would be the end of a way of life.
- PeterStuer 3y ago
  There is a vast difference between the 'surgical' precision footage pushed through regime media such as CNN, and the reality of undiscriminate carnage in the actual warzone.
jiggawatts 3y ago
You should watch more combat footage on Reddit. Artillery is woefully ineffective against even lightly protected troops. It takes about a dozen expensive 155mm shells to get one kill against troops out in the open. It still takes about two of the much more expensive cluster munitions to get one kill. The submunitions in those things are about as expensive as a “murder bot” would be. An actual person-seeking drone might have a failure rate lower than 50%. A single shell with 20 mini drones could take out a dozen troops, even if they’re in a trench, or spread out, or lying on the ground to avoid shrapnel. It would be the end of infantry warfare, forever. Squishy meat troops can’t evade tiny bots with 1000 fps cameras and inhuman reaction times.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Squishy meat troops can so long as they're outside of battery range. That said, within battery range looks pretty grim.
  - SubiculumCode 3y ago
    So you are saying we should stop researching solar panel tech? ;)
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Since you mention it: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37287190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37287190> Though that does raise some interesting relationships between insolation and combat situations. Night-time, winter (short daylight cycles and low solar angle), and overcast / stormy weather might favour infantry over solar-powered / assisted drones.
  - asah 3y ago
    Drone range can be extended, either with battery resupply drones or by landing recharging (e.g. solar) Water is not a deterrent - Ukraine has already deployed drone watercraft.
    - 3y ago
zizee 3y ago
The entire premise of the video is not what is possible right now, but what could be possible in the not to distant future. I.e. that these drones do become available to anyone. Easy to acquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. It's also not about warring states, but instead very targeted assassinations, where the perpetrators doesn't have to be anywhere near the target, allowing very little risk of punishment, retaliation, or even identification.
- coderenegade 3y ago
  Aren't assassinations targeted by definition? And surely this kind of thing is already doable if you're motivated enough, e.g. every smart phone is both an identity mechanism and a signal (thanks to all of the tracking/location systems) that could probably be used to guide a weapon system to an intended target. Hell, there was a kiwi engineer who built a cruise missile in his garage almost 20 years ago. I don't know that a killbot system offers much of an improvement over existing methods for the difficulty of execution, with the probable exception of, say, air superiority where the capability of autonomous systems will far surpass human ability. But even there we're probably two generations away from fully autonomous systems; the next generation seems to be robotic wingmen. What really stops the average person from building these systems isn't necessarily the difficulty of the system itself, but rather the impossibility of getting the components. The drone is just a delivery mechanism for the ordinance, and good luck getting your hands on that. Also, for said killbots to be anything other than a trivial threat (just jam the signal) they would need pretty decent onboard AI to function independently, which I guess is the point they're trying to make. But there are almost certainly far easier and more cost effective ways to get the same effect that don't rely on currently non-existent technology.
  - zizee 3y ago
    > Aren't assassinations targeted by definition? Sure. I should have said assassinations and targetted attacks. The video shows the ability to target specific races/genders/demographics. > The drone is just a delivery mechanism for the ordinance, and good luck getting your hands on that. I don't know why a shotgun cartridge could not be used in place of a shaped charge. Just pop down to your local Walmart. You seem to be arguing that this work speculative fiction isn't interesting because we already have a huge number of ways to kill people, and that it's not currently possible. The point of this sort of fiction is to get us to imagine a world where these things are possible, where it is achievable.
kypro 3y ago
> If military drones were to become real and as capable as in the video, they would be hard to aquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. Couldn't a terrorist load an explosive on a drone and drove it into a music festival or some other open-air large gathering? This is what concerns me personally. Although long-term (~10 years) I wouldn't bet on more capable weaponised drones being hard to aquire, maintain, or operate.
- i_am_jl 3y ago
  Someone tried to assassinate Nicolas Maduro with drones carrying explosives back in 2018. Protections against this sort of thing usually exist in the form of radio jammers; disrupting the control transmission from the pilot or the video transmission from the drone. If the control system is onboard the drone it's a lot harder to disrupt. As far as I know the systems designed to counter this sort of threat look like shipping container sized microwave emitters that interfere with the electronics of the UAV.
- badideathrway1 3y ago
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- chasd00 3y ago
  At ACL (Austin city limits), a music festival in TX, as soon as the sun goes down you see drone leds overhead everywhere. It wouldn’t be that hard.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Any of the drones used in the Ukraine right now would be able to do a lot of damage. And those things are relatively low tech. The reason these horror scenarios aren't so common is that most people simply are not suicidal murderers. It's always been easy to target crowds of people. But it's not that common for people to actually do that. When it does happen, there usually isn't a happy end for anyone involved with the attack. Any determined idiot armed with a knife, baseball bat, truck, improvised explosives, etc. would be able to do quite a bit of damage. And in the US you can of course add all the light military gear that lots of people there buy for fun (assault rifles, etc.). That sometimes goes horribly wrong of course but you don't need drones to do a lot of damage.
flangola7 3y ago
>If military drones were to become real and as capable as in the video, they would be hard to aquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. Really? Because as of right now everyone in HN and other tech communities thinks government regulation of AI is "market capture" and should be blocked entirely. Many will not be convinced until the horse is already long gone. The parts to make an 8 inch kill drone (except the explosive, but you could use a blade or other simple weapon) from scratch are sold at microcenter. The only missing piece is the software.
dralley 3y ago
"I can only imagine what would happen for example if the US still had a relatively large contingent in Afghan, and the militants got a supply of even few hundred high precision aerial IEDs per month." Not much need to imagine. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/12fl7lq/ukrainian_fpv_drone_is_pursuing_russian_infantry/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/12fl7lq/ukra...

asah 3y ago

Today's news: https://globalpulsenews.com/putins-colonel-killed-in-drone-strike-while-mowing-lawn-at-his-russian-residence/ https://globalpulsenews.com/putins-colonel-killed-in-drone-s...

networkchad 3y ago

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Teever 3y ago

> they would be hard to aquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. How exactly? Are you expecting some sort of DRM in all commercial EDA and CAD software? Will opensource CAD and EDA software become illegal? Will customs search all packages from Chinese PCB manufacturers for illicit drone designs? Of course a nuclear weapon can kill more people than a drone swarm, but that's besides the point. What exactly does non-proliferation look like for drone swarms? What happens when the cost of a drone swarm drops to $10?

bhhaskin 3y ago
You don't need to worry about the drones themselves. The drones are useless without the explosive munitions. Good luck acquiring that without raising any flags. Not to mention somehow acquiring all the training data and ML modals to actually make them useful. Then there is the compute power that would be needed and coms infrastructure. it puts it firmly out of reach for anyone that isn't state sponsored. Not saying autonomous weapons won't/couldn't be an issue. just pointing out that drone swarms won't be.
- yreg 3y ago
  What makes you sure that the ML models to actually make them useful won't be available on huggingface?
- Teever 3y ago
  Improvised explosives are trivial to make, motivated people will find a way. If they can make meth, marijuana, or moonshine they can make explosives. The rest of the issues are mere technical speedbumps that industrious open source people will cruise over.
- toss1 3y ago
  >>explosive munitions. Good luck acquiring that without raising any flags Not if you were a bit precocious in HC chemistry; I know my friends and I were not even close to alone in knowing all kinds of interesting fireworks recipes, all of which were well tested, and could be configured for anything from a small 'pop' to far more power than a slaughterbot. All from basic chemicals that can be easily be acquired without raising an eyebrow (could alternatively just repurpose a bullet/ shotgun shell, very easily obtained). The ability to put it right on target means that very little is needed. >>acquiring all the training data and ML modals to actually make them useful. Sure, if you are looking for fully ai-controlled and integrated with a city-wide CCTV system, that's a big task. But drone control and swarming is already out of the bag. Even a basic open-source Pixhawk does obstacle avoidance, and so can likely be reprogrammed for obstacle-targeting. Multiple off-the-shelf drones have done "follow-me" for years. I'd be astonished if a competent team with five-figure funding couldn't make a working system that could be deployed near a target, ID, it and home in. We're way past needing state funding. The fact that it is not here suggests that while the scenario is scary, it is not actually that useful? Perhaps that's hoping too much.
  - qup 3y ago
    I agree with all your points. I've been saying to my friends that I think one of the wealthy billionaires could possibly become a serious power. I think we can all agree Elon Musk could make this happen easily with his existing SpaceX people, and then build a bajillion of them with his Tesla people. I wonder how far EM could go if he went full evil, full throttle and tried to take over something [the world? a country?] with a drone fleet? Charging stations seems easily solved, so the drones never need direct human interaction. Terrifying.
margalabargala 3y ago
Consider that despite grenades being dropped from drones onto Russian soldiers in Ukraine on a daily basis, it happens to American civilians never despite America's extremely high homicide rate. This is due to a lack of grenades, not a lack of drones. The main thing gating slaughterbots from reality is the proliferation of the shaped explosive, not of the delivery mechanism.
- Teever 3y ago
  Americans kill each other with guns because guns are cheap and plentiful, not because grenades are scarce. If guns were as scarce as frag grenades then it would be a competition between which one is more effective at killing and the availability wouldn't factor into the weapon choice at all. What you're telling me is that slaughterbots will be armed with guns that shoot bullets, not fragementation grenades.
  - margalabargala 3y ago
    Well, it's a bit more than that. People kill each other with whatever they have close at hand when they get into a fight; handguns are easily carried into a bar or on the street, which is why more people are killed with handguns than long rifles in America despite more of the latter existing. People aren't going to start carrying drones with propellers around in their pockets. It could be used by some people who want to do targeted killings, e.g. in gang violence, where it could be better than other methods maybe. But on the other hand, RC helicopters able to carry and shoot a gun have existed since at least 2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZCH1492CzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZCH1492CzA The number of people who actually want to kill lots of people without being physically present is extremely small; so small that in a country the size of the US, one only crops up every couple decades, e.g. Timothy McVeigh. I would make a solid bet that proliferation of cheap drones does not impact the homicide or terrorism rate in the US in either direction.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Grenades are low precision weapons that are relatively safe to use. Guns are high precision but very difficult to use in a firefight. If you watch Ukraine footage, soldiers barely even look where they’re shooting. They’re just trying to establish suppression over an area so that they can toss more grenades to kill people. That’s because both sides have guns. If you aren’t fighting an armed combatant to the death. The calculus changes a lot.
RealityVoid 3y ago
Because if you look around at sophisticated military hardware (which these drones, when they will exist, will be) it's all like that. I feel that the point our stances diverge is you feel these kind of weapons systems would become something a skilled hacker could make in a shed out of AliExpress parts for a 10$ bom, whereas I view it as being a complex weapon system that would be sophisticated and relies on battlefield infrastructure and complex supply chains to be feasible to properly deploy. I think if you look at cutting edge weapons, my belief is no hacker could build them in their garage, no matter how sophisticated. Hell, take a look at the pathetic state of "3d printed" weapons to see how I imagine DIY "slaughterbots" would look like. And acquiring the real weapons would not be easy at all. Heck, even now, if you want to acquire for your projects certain camera or heat sensors you have tons of hoops to jump through to get your hands on them. Besides, even IF it would be something a DIY-er could do, someone wanting to kill civilians would probably use the most effective tools, least resource intensive, least effort tool, least conspicuous to gather resources and this would not be it. Today any maniac can use a car to plow down civilians or get a gun and go on a rampage. That is low effort high impact. This would be a lot higher effort. Probably kind of the same impact.
- varjag 3y ago
  FPV killer drones used in Ukraine now are really slapdash designs: often just motors on a flat fixture with a charge rubber-banded to it. They are used to devastating effect. The only part of this technology that is remotely possible to tackle on is proliferation of explosives.
  - RealityVoid 3y ago
    Fully agree. I mentioned in my original post I believe them to be very capable on a battlefield. But from there to slaughterbots like targeter drones there is a looong way. I believe my points still remain valid.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Explosives being squirreled away (and practically untraceable) by any number of actors in that theatre right now by the ton.
coderenegade 3y ago
The ordinance is controlled, and without that the system loses a lot of potency. Not to mention that without decent onboard AI, jamming is a pretty good countermeasure since target selection and much of the control input isn't actually done onboard the vehicle. Those seem like pretty large hurdles imo. Edit: and, as others mentioned, goods even tangentially related to defense are routinely controlled. In the extreme case, countries like the US would onshore manufacturing of certain components, acquisition would require licensing, and competing products from overseas would simply be banned.
- Teever 3y ago
  What is so difficult about creating a small explosive that could take a chunk out of someones neck so they bleed out? > In the extreme case, countries like the US would onshore manufacturing of certain components, acquisition would require licensing, and competing products from overseas would simply be banned. Which parts exactly? the PCBs? The motors? the microcontrollers? the batteries? How would that work exactly? How do you regulate any of this without per component DRM? What would that look like exactly? Would I need a license to buy a child's toy that had a microcontroller in it? Would they nerf microcontrollers for devices like appliances and toys so taht they weren't fast enough to handle the needs of a drone?
  - coderenegade 3y ago
    Materials for making decent explosives are usually controlled. If you're talking homemade explosives, you probably aren't getting that on a quadrotor, or if you are, you're seriously compromising its performance. Bullets are controlled through licensing in most first world countries. If you wanted to control components going into homebuilt drones, you would probably target the guidance, since even basic waypoint navigation requires something to tell you where you are in relation to the target. To an extent this is already done with GPS (the true precision was classified last I checked, civilian uses are downgraded), but controlling manufacture and distribution of the stack would shut any kind of home robotics down while leaving a lot of channels untouched. If people wanted PCBs, fine, they just wouldn't be able to get certain sensors on them without a license. You don't need global DRM to control exports. It's routine for some industries. Of course, much of this is besides the point, because if someone really wants to hurt other people, they'll find a way. But the components to build a cruise missile in your backyard not only exist, they're mostly available COTS, but the critical parts like the payload are controlled. In some hypothetical future where AI drones became a threat, you can bet that the critical paths would be identified fairly quickly and locked down.

I_Am_Nous 3y ago

[Nah] Being afraid of automated, weaponized drones [!!!] Being afraid of social media enabling something like automated, weaponized drones This boogieman from the future is kind of overshadowing the fact that social media is already weaponized and used to harm people, and can be used in increasingly effective ways without the need for shaped charges or even physical objects.

trevor-e 3y ago

It's the precision and nimbleness that's scary to me compared to weapons capable of vast destruction.

soligern 3y ago

Vast destruction is almost never used because of the consequences and collateral damage. Surgical, cheap attacks would be used on an everyday basis. This is what makes it terrifying. It doesn’t even have to be murder, even surveillance would be the end of a way of life.

PeterStuer 3y ago
There is a vast difference between the 'surgical' precision footage pushed through regime media such as CNN, and the reality of undiscriminate carnage in the actual warzone.

jiggawatts 3y ago

You should watch more combat footage on Reddit. Artillery is woefully ineffective against even lightly protected troops. It takes about a dozen expensive 155mm shells to get one kill against troops out in the open. It still takes about two of the much more expensive cluster munitions to get one kill. The submunitions in those things are about as expensive as a “murder bot” would be. An actual person-seeking drone might have a failure rate lower than 50%. A single shell with 20 mini drones could take out a dozen troops, even if they’re in a trench, or spread out, or lying on the ground to avoid shrapnel. It would be the end of infantry warfare, forever. Squishy meat troops can’t evade tiny bots with 1000 fps cameras and inhuman reaction times.

dredmorbius 3y ago
Squishy meat troops can so long as they're outside of battery range. That said, within battery range looks pretty grim.
- SubiculumCode 3y ago
  So you are saying we should stop researching solar panel tech? ;)
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Since you mention it: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37287190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37287190> Though that does raise some interesting relationships between insolation and combat situations. Night-time, winter (short daylight cycles and low solar angle), and overcast / stormy weather might favour infantry over solar-powered / assisted drones.
- asah 3y ago
  Drone range can be extended, either with battery resupply drones or by landing recharging (e.g. solar) Water is not a deterrent - Ukraine has already deployed drone watercraft.
  - 3y ago

zizee 3y ago

The entire premise of the video is not what is possible right now, but what could be possible in the not to distant future. I.e. that these drones do become available to anyone. Easy to acquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. It's also not about warring states, but instead very targeted assassinations, where the perpetrators doesn't have to be anywhere near the target, allowing very little risk of punishment, retaliation, or even identification.

coderenegade 3y ago
Aren't assassinations targeted by definition? And surely this kind of thing is already doable if you're motivated enough, e.g. every smart phone is both an identity mechanism and a signal (thanks to all of the tracking/location systems) that could probably be used to guide a weapon system to an intended target. Hell, there was a kiwi engineer who built a cruise missile in his garage almost 20 years ago. I don't know that a killbot system offers much of an improvement over existing methods for the difficulty of execution, with the probable exception of, say, air superiority where the capability of autonomous systems will far surpass human ability. But even there we're probably two generations away from fully autonomous systems; the next generation seems to be robotic wingmen. What really stops the average person from building these systems isn't necessarily the difficulty of the system itself, but rather the impossibility of getting the components. The drone is just a delivery mechanism for the ordinance, and good luck getting your hands on that. Also, for said killbots to be anything other than a trivial threat (just jam the signal) they would need pretty decent onboard AI to function independently, which I guess is the point they're trying to make. But there are almost certainly far easier and more cost effective ways to get the same effect that don't rely on currently non-existent technology.
- zizee 3y ago
  > Aren't assassinations targeted by definition? Sure. I should have said assassinations and targetted attacks. The video shows the ability to target specific races/genders/demographics. > The drone is just a delivery mechanism for the ordinance, and good luck getting your hands on that. I don't know why a shotgun cartridge could not be used in place of a shaped charge. Just pop down to your local Walmart. You seem to be arguing that this work speculative fiction isn't interesting because we already have a huge number of ways to kill people, and that it's not currently possible. The point of this sort of fiction is to get us to imagine a world where these things are possible, where it is achievable.

kypro 3y ago

> If military drones were to become real and as capable as in the video, they would be hard to aquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. Couldn't a terrorist load an explosive on a drone and drove it into a music festival or some other open-air large gathering? This is what concerns me personally. Although long-term (~10 years) I wouldn't bet on more capable weaponised drones being hard to aquire, maintain, or operate.

i_am_jl 3y ago
Someone tried to assassinate Nicolas Maduro with drones carrying explosives back in 2018. Protections against this sort of thing usually exist in the form of radio jammers; disrupting the control transmission from the pilot or the video transmission from the drone. If the control system is onboard the drone it's a lot harder to disrupt. As far as I know the systems designed to counter this sort of threat look like shipping container sized microwave emitters that interfere with the electronics of the UAV.
badideathrway1 3y ago
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chasd00 3y ago
At ACL (Austin city limits), a music festival in TX, as soon as the sun goes down you see drone leds overhead everywhere. It wouldn’t be that hard.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Any of the drones used in the Ukraine right now would be able to do a lot of damage. And those things are relatively low tech. The reason these horror scenarios aren't so common is that most people simply are not suicidal murderers. It's always been easy to target crowds of people. But it's not that common for people to actually do that. When it does happen, there usually isn't a happy end for anyone involved with the attack. Any determined idiot armed with a knife, baseball bat, truck, improvised explosives, etc. would be able to do quite a bit of damage. And in the US you can of course add all the light military gear that lots of people there buy for fun (assault rifles, etc.). That sometimes goes horribly wrong of course but you don't need drones to do a lot of damage.

flangola7 3y ago

>If military drones were to become real and as capable as in the video, they would be hard to aquire, maintain, operate and keep hidden. Really? Because as of right now everyone in HN and other tech communities thinks government regulation of AI is "market capture" and should be blocked entirely. Many will not be convinced until the horse is already long gone. The parts to make an 8 inch kill drone (except the explosive, but you could use a blade or other simple weapon) from scratch are sold at microcenter. The only missing piece is the software.

dralley 3y ago

"I can only imagine what would happen for example if the US still had a relatively large contingent in Afghan, and the militants got a supply of even few hundred high precision aerial IEDs per month." Not much need to imagine. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/12fl7lq/ukrainian_fpv_drone_is_pursuing_russian_infantry/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/12fl7lq/ukra...