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Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Is Working on a Secret Military Drone Project
- sour-taste 3y agohttps://archive.ph/byhWo https://archive.ph/byhWo
- seydor 3y agomaybe not so secret now
- ActionHank 3y agoShhh, it’s super secret, send VC money to address provided xoxo - Eric
- paganel 3y agoHe was heavily mentioning drones in the Foreign Affairs piece [1] he wrote in the spring of 2023: "Innovation Power - Why Technology Will Define the Future of Geopolitics" > Drones offer distinct advantages over traditional weapons: they are smaller and cheaper, offer unmatched surveillance capabilities, and reduce soldiers’ risk exposure. Marines in urban warfare, for example, could be accompanied by microdrones that serve as their eyes and ears. Over time, countries will improve the hardware and software powering drones to outinnovate their rivals. Eventually, autonomous weaponized drones—not just unmanned aerial vehicles but also ground-based ones—will replace soldiers and manned artillery altogether. Imagine an autonomous submarine that could quickly move supplies into contested waters or an autonomous truck that could find the optimal route to carry small missile launchers across rough terrain. Swarms of drones, networked and coordinated by AI, could overwhelm tank and infantry formations in the field. My take on this is that lacking direct combat experience everything the Americans (and the West more generally) will come up with in terms of drones will be hugely inferior to whatever the Russians are now building, heck, it would be inferior even to what the Ukrainians have managed to build locally (one of the targets the Russians hit recently was an Ukrainian drone factory in Kiev). [1] https://archive.is/wvhck https://archive.is/wvhck
- csdvrx 3y ago> My take on this is that lacking direct combat experience everything the Americans (and the West more generally) will come up with in terms of drones will be hugely inferior to whatever the Russians are now building So what? As someone famous said, "Quantity is a quality on its own"
- paganel 3y agoDon't think that the West will go for "quantity over quality" in its arms' race with China/Russia, it has stopped doing that for at least 30 years (since they scrapped most of the Cold War-related arms industry).
- dilyevsky 3y agoquality will have a diminishing return over time as your enemy adapts as has been shown with excalibur and even himars in this conflict. wunderwaffe don't win wars
- PoignardAzur 3y agoThere are so many assumptions packed in that post it feels weird to try to unpack them; eg, the implication the "local" Ukrainian equipment would be by default inferior to Russian equipment, which doesn't seem obvious at all to me. But empirically speaking, the idea that Russian equipment will be better than OTAN equipment because of their combat experience is pretty bold considering the current domination of OTAN equipment in the Ukraine-Russia war.
- kramerger 3y agoMaybe it was completely unrelated, but pre-Schmidt Google was nice. Under Schmidt it started its journey towards becoming the creepy stalker it is today. Never liked the guy, and wouldn't surprise me if he is working on landmines targeting children.
- el-dude-arino 3y agoHe's diddling the CEO of his main investment; Michelle Ritter of Steel Perlot. He's a fucking creep who got lucky and was in the right place at the right time, just like most tech oligarchs we all bow to, like Musk, Larry and Sergey, Zuckerberg, or Dorsey. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schmidt-michelle-ritter-steel-perlot/?sh=33cceef970a5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2023/10/23/eric-schm...
- toasted-subs 3y ago[flagged]
- threeseed 3y agoSchmidt was the CEO of Novell which was a well known company at the time. And Google was a pretty unsafe bet. It's easy to say in hindsight that these people were lucky but at the time most of the founders you list made bets that were pretty unorthodox.
- AlbertCory 3y agoYes. To the person alleging "luck": what things have you said or done lately that will look incredibly stupid in 30 years? Trick question. You don't know, do you?
- roenxi 3y agoI'm identifying this as whinging without an actual complaint. Some people are lucky, and putting his girlfriend in charge of something is unimpressive but also unobjectionable in the main.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoI worked for a few years in defense and it was the most meaningful work of my career so far but it is painfully slow and entrenched. There is massive opportunity for innovation. I hope he can move the needle- he was on the Defense Innovation Board a while back so he knows.
- okdood64 3y agoAnduril looks promising in that regard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anduril_Industries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anduril_Industries
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoI'm curious as to what you found meaningful working for the defence industry ? Genuine question. I am asking because to me it does not seem like "defence" whatsoever.
- lavajava 3y agoThis comment appears insincere in the context of your additional comments. Please keep the conversation civil.
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoIt was very sincere. Please keep your directives to yourself, if they do not add anything to the discussion.
- dmoy 3y agoIn the US, the "defense industry" is just anything military-ish related. Or not even military related, but funded by e.g. NRL/AFRL research grants. It stems from the renaming of the Department of War to the Department of Defense after WWII.
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoI am well aware, and I am well aware of where the US military operates or where the US military industrial - so called defence - complex exports its weapons. Which is precisely why I am curious what the OP found "meaningful".
- ChumpGPT 3y agoAfter watching 1000's of Ukrainian drone videos, it's absolutely terrifying for the foot soldier these days. You almost stand zero chance and as for vehicles, it can seriously impact their usefulness. APC's,Tanks become scrap metal from a $500 drone carrying a shaped charge. The US has always depended on air superiority to fight its wars, they are completely unprepared for what facing an enemy with superior air defense can turn war on the ground into (WW1 style trench warfare). Add to that an enemy that would sacrifice millions of soldiers without an care or remorse.
- nerpderp82 3y agoWhich is why we should be halting the progression and use of the drones like we are seeing in Ukraine. No one wins a drone war.
- networkchad 3y ago[dead]
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoThe same way we halted the use of chemical weapons, which have seen rampant use in the Syrian war ? Unfortunately these measures do not seem to work.. If even one actor is employing them, the rest need to also employ them in a lack of a better defence.
- kaibee 3y agoA drone is just some electric motors, batteries, RF control and a gyroscope/accelerometer. I'm not exactly sure how you could halt the progression at this point.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sdenton4 3y agoAre you suggesting we should move on from drone wars to clone wars? https://youtu.be/enrUBmDgeOQ?si=F3nfNjO40_v04wCu&t=17 https://youtu.be/enrUBmDgeOQ?si=F3nfNjO40_v04wCu&t=17
- jjtheblunt 3y agoHow could Schmidt, kicked off the Apple Board of Directors for passing secret Apple designs to Google back when Android had a trackball, get a security clearance?
- coffeebeqn 3y agoA billionaire is treated well by the US system? How could this be
- threeseed 3y agoThe same way Palmer Luckey did who is far more erratic and unpredictable. Government has learnt from Ukraine war that iterating quickly on technology is vital for the future of the military.
- CrzyLngPwd 3y ago"Rich man wants more money, chooses the easy option"
- skymast 3y ago[dead]
- mynameisnoone 3y ago"Don't be evil" and then helps the Military Industrial Complex create ever more efficient killing machines for money.