4 ms·

In a small skirmish in which the side with the AI has a lot of resources, sure. In a large scale war, I’m not so sure. A fire-and-forget weapon with a 40km ran

by amluto 3y ago

In a small skirmish in which the side with the AI has a lot of resources, sure. In a large scale war, I’m not so sure. A fire-and-forget weapon with a 40km range is expensive and might be a scarce resource. Bullets are much cheaper, and if the AI can fly itself close enough to shoot you, it can do so inexpensively. And this is not to mention that a 40km range weapon requires targeting that works at 40km.

bearjaws 3y ago
Yup, any protracted war will resemble WW2 or Ukraine within a year. It's an ugly truth that you need an advanced infrastructure to build these sophisticated weapons, that level of infrastructure is easily destroyed.
- ptero 3y ago
  Those weapons are sophisticated today because they were developed by the western military industrial complex under heavy oversight by politicians, neither of which had a need for a cheap, effective, high explosive drone. Fundamentally, those cost a few thousand dollars in components at most. The reason the end products are expensive is that they are not optimized for mass production. Which, for better or worse, is starting to change. My 2c.
harshreality 3y ago
Highly maneuverable reusable aircraft (even drones) are expensive, and a scarcer resource than missiles. In modern great power military conflict, if you get to the point where you can fly F-16s or a hypermaneuverable AI dogfighting drone into visual range against an opponent [with inferior planes] who's out of missiles, haven't you already won? If the opponent isn't inferior in dogfights, then instead of using ~$1mil munitions as expendables, you're using planes (and possibly pilots) as expendables. That's not a good or economical trade-off when missiles are as good as they are today.
dghlsakjg 3y ago
Bullets are cheap, but an AI airplane with a gun is far more expensive than almost any fire and forget missile since it is effectively a larger, more complex, more expensive fire and forget missile.
- gpderetta 3y ago
  Yes, but it is potentially reusable.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago
  That’s the point though, AI is replicable. You don’t have to create the AI every time you fire, just once, and then copy it over forevermore.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    The software is freely replicable, the hardware is not. And the hardware for just the “running the AI” part of the reusable AI fighter is going to be more expensive than the electronics of a single use fire-and-forget air-to-air missile, and so will most of the parts of the fighter compared to the missile.
    - polygamous_bat 3y ago
      You don’t need a 1.8T parameter LLM to control an AI guided missile. In all likelihood, the model to control these can be run on an iPhone-level computer, which is max $1000. The bottleneck is still the missile.
- amluto 3y ago
  The idea would be that an AI airplane with a gun would destroy more targets, on expectation, in its lifetime than a missile would.
  - scottLobster 3y ago
    Depends greatly on the AA capabilities of your adversary. Slower moving, larger drones with guns are easier to detect and shoot down than missiles, and probably more expensive than the average missile as well. The only way a gun might be more efficient is in a situation with total air supremacy like Iraq or Afghanistan, and the targets would ideally be in the open.
LandR 3y ago
How close do you have to be to confirm the thing you want to kill isn't friendly?
- nradov 3y ago
  That's kind of a political question. Politicians set the rules of engagement, which dictate the level of confirmation required before employing weapons. It's a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum a certain area can be designated as a free-fire zone in which any airborne contact is assumed to be hostile. In the middle of the spectrum it may be required to use data links and IFF to avoid firing on friendly or neutral aircraft. And at the other end of the spectrum, visual confirmation may be required.
jvanderbot 3y ago
40km isn't even the horizon. This cost a million and will kill you four times further. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM Do you believe a jet fighter drone with a gun can be manufactured with sensing, computing, landing, takeoff, and AI for a million, or even a million per kill vs fighter craft? I do not. Maybe you'll want AI for loitering munitions, for air to air a fighter drone is going to look more like a first stage for a multi-missile launch platform. It'll fly a while, loiter, volley against aircraft or missiles, then return for rearm and recover.
Solvency 3y ago
[flagged]

by amluto 3y ago

bearjaws 3y ago

Yup, any protracted war will resemble WW2 or Ukraine within a year. It's an ugly truth that you need an advanced infrastructure to build these sophisticated weapons, that level of infrastructure is easily destroyed.

ptero 3y ago
Those weapons are sophisticated today because they were developed by the western military industrial complex under heavy oversight by politicians, neither of which had a need for a cheap, effective, high explosive drone. Fundamentally, those cost a few thousand dollars in components at most. The reason the end products are expensive is that they are not optimized for mass production. Which, for better or worse, is starting to change. My 2c.

harshreality 3y ago

Highly maneuverable reusable aircraft (even drones) are expensive, and a scarcer resource than missiles. In modern great power military conflict, if you get to the point where you can fly F-16s or a hypermaneuverable AI dogfighting drone into visual range against an opponent [with inferior planes] who's out of missiles, haven't you already won? If the opponent isn't inferior in dogfights, then instead of using ~$1mil munitions as expendables, you're using planes (and possibly pilots) as expendables. That's not a good or economical trade-off when missiles are as good as they are today.

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Bullets are cheap, but an AI airplane with a gun is far more expensive than almost any fire and forget missile since it is effectively a larger, more complex, more expensive fire and forget missile.

gpderetta 3y ago
Yes, but it is potentially reusable.
polygamous_bat 3y ago
That’s the point though, AI is replicable. You don’t have to create the AI every time you fire, just once, and then copy it over forevermore.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  The software is freely replicable, the hardware is not. And the hardware for just the “running the AI” part of the reusable AI fighter is going to be more expensive than the electronics of a single use fire-and-forget air-to-air missile, and so will most of the parts of the fighter compared to the missile.
  - polygamous_bat 3y ago
    You don’t need a 1.8T parameter LLM to control an AI guided missile. In all likelihood, the model to control these can be run on an iPhone-level computer, which is max $1000. The bottleneck is still the missile.
amluto 3y ago
The idea would be that an AI airplane with a gun would destroy more targets, on expectation, in its lifetime than a missile would.
- scottLobster 3y ago
  Depends greatly on the AA capabilities of your adversary. Slower moving, larger drones with guns are easier to detect and shoot down than missiles, and probably more expensive than the average missile as well. The only way a gun might be more efficient is in a situation with total air supremacy like Iraq or Afghanistan, and the targets would ideally be in the open.

LandR 3y ago

How close do you have to be to confirm the thing you want to kill isn't friendly?

nradov 3y ago
That's kind of a political question. Politicians set the rules of engagement, which dictate the level of confirmation required before employing weapons. It's a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum a certain area can be designated as a free-fire zone in which any airborne contact is assumed to be hostile. In the middle of the spectrum it may be required to use data links and IFF to avoid firing on friendly or neutral aircraft. And at the other end of the spectrum, visual confirmation may be required.

jvanderbot 3y ago

40km isn't even the horizon. This cost a million and will kill you four times further. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM Do you believe a jet fighter drone with a gun can be manufactured with sensing, computing, landing, takeoff, and AI for a million, or even a million per kill vs fighter craft? I do not. Maybe you'll want AI for loitering munitions, for air to air a fighter drone is going to look more like a first stage for a multi-missile launch platform. It'll fly a while, loiter, volley against aircraft or missiles, then return for rearm and recover.

Solvency 3y ago

[flagged]