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I couldn't stop thinking about armed drones during the recent gun-control furor. I was wondering how it would change the debate if people were really thinking

I couldn't stop thinking about armed drones during the recent gun-control furor. I was wondering how it would change the debate if people were really thinking about it - about the near inevitability that they will be used domestically by government and non-governmental actors. The issue doesn't win clean points on either side, but it does seem to make a lot of today's fears about guns seem trivial.

rayiner 14y ago
Without major advances in artificial intelligence technology, drones have a key weakness: the wireless link. Miniaturization may win the drones arms race, which makes drones accessible to non-governmental actors, but when it comes to controlling the spectrum, bigger is better. So governmental actors are always going to have an advantage because they can build the biggest antennas attached to the biggest power sources.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  Not a problem if you know where the target's going to be. Imagine a swarm of explosive-carrying drones hitting the President's podium at inaguration from a dozen different directions. Known time, known position, open-air approaches. Must be something that keeps the Secret Service up at night.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    Consider the possibility that you just levelled up in a couple of database tables.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      You're not serious, right? If joke: funny. If serious: worrying.
      - jacquesm 14y ago
        Definitely a joke, if you're serious that's even more worrying ;) Still, people have been lifted from their beds for tweets about such things. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/obama-twitter-death-threats-486712 http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/obama-twitter-death-thre... Granted that was slightly more specific threat, but this being hacker news that ggp already has a strike against ;)
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Designing a drone that operates purely based on inertial navigation is a good bit harder and more expensive than something that uses an off the shelf GPS device.
    - mseebach 14y ago
      It could operate on visual recognition. It shouldn't be too difficult to find three easily recognisable landmarks around the Mall.
  - mseebach 14y ago
    This kind of drones are relatively slow. The perimeter around in the president in any exposed situation is pretty large. Any appearance of unidentified flying objects on the scene is likely to trigger an evacuation of any key targets. For the kind of payloads small drones can carry, and with no possibility of changing the target, you don't even need to move the target very far for the strike to be non-lethal. On the other hand, you could build a cruise missile (essentially a drone) that might be big and fast enough to hit your target. But those date back to WWII, so if they keep the Secret Service up at night, it's a pretty exhausted security detail by now.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  You don't necessarily need a wireless link. You can always use preprogrammed routes. Scouts can simply log data and return with it later, much like the spy planes of old using film cameras. Attacks can similarly be preprogrammed; bombers in war, for example, tend to have fixed targets. It's the interceptors that would prove the most difficult to operate autonomously; they are the only one whose primary purpose is never fixed. Rolling with the idea of a drone dystopia, as drones get smart enough you could even rely on the drone to make its own decisions and respond without an external operator.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    One of the things that makes cheap drones possible is easily accessible, off-the-shelf, cheap and lightweight computer/GPS/wireless hardware. Losing GPS and having to use inertial guidance makes the problem a lot more expensive and complicated, and advanced AI is like manned missions to mars--always further off than it looks.
    - sliverstorm 14y ago
      Ok, so you are specifically referring to GPS. I agree, GPS is important for cheap and easy navigation. I was presuming you were talking about a link to a base-station. Of course, aren't all the GPS satellites already government satellites in the first place? Seems like they wouldn't need to jam the signal, they could just shut them down, or maybe GPS can be set to require authentication...
jules 14y ago
In the past a dictator always had to depend on large numbers of other people to enforce his power. That means that if enough people are fed up with him, he will lose his power. It is really scary to imagine a future where a handful of people or even a single person can physically control the entire population. This is of course not a binary change, but a gradual one. Before guns, a dictator had to keep perhaps 30% of the population happy. With guns a much smaller number of people could control a much larger number. Autonomous weapon systems like drones are just the logical conclusion.
- mseebach 14y ago
  Which neatly sums up the argument for the second amendment.
  - scarmig 14y ago
    Second amendment remedies will be rather... lacking when it comes to 24/7 surveillance by armed drones flying above the sky. It's scary but increasingly inevitable that panopticon surveillance of all open physical spaces will happen. Having a rifle isn't going to do much to escape or counteract that.
  - hindsightbias 14y ago
    Maybe you're trying to be ironical, but the 2nd Amendment reads "being necessary to the security of a free State" As in, "free to form militias to beat down slave rebellions" So unless you've got a problem with your slaves, not sure it's so neat.
    - n3rdy 14y ago
      Was about to post what a perversion that interpretation is of the 2nd amendment, but holy cow can't actually argue with that. What a shame they wrote "free state", but then again, they were forming a new government, so what should we have expected? And if actions speak louder than words, most of the founders who served as presidents didn't exactly "walk the walk" constitutionally when they held that position.
speik 14y ago
They already are used domestically. One was used in North Dakota to track and arrest armed subjects (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-a...). Another was used in Austin, TX to do recon for a drug raid (http://www.kvue.com/news/DPS-using-drones-to-fight-crime-locally-114518554.html http://www.kvue.com/news/DPS-using-drones-to-fight-crime-loc...). Granted they are not widespread yet, but the seal has definitely been broken.

rayiner 14y ago

Without major advances in artificial intelligence technology, drones have a key weakness: the wireless link. Miniaturization may win the drones arms race, which makes drones accessible to non-governmental actors, but when it comes to controlling the spectrum, bigger is better. So governmental actors are always going to have an advantage because they can build the biggest antennas attached to the biggest power sources.

ceejayoz 14y ago
Not a problem if you know where the target's going to be. Imagine a swarm of explosive-carrying drones hitting the President's podium at inaguration from a dozen different directions. Known time, known position, open-air approaches. Must be something that keeps the Secret Service up at night.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  Consider the possibility that you just levelled up in a couple of database tables.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    You're not serious, right? If joke: funny. If serious: worrying.
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      Definitely a joke, if you're serious that's even more worrying ;) Still, people have been lifted from their beds for tweets about such things. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/obama-twitter-death-threats-486712 http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/obama-twitter-death-thre... Granted that was slightly more specific threat, but this being hacker news that ggp already has a strike against ;)
- rayiner 14y ago
  Designing a drone that operates purely based on inertial navigation is a good bit harder and more expensive than something that uses an off the shelf GPS device.
  - mseebach 14y ago
    It could operate on visual recognition. It shouldn't be too difficult to find three easily recognisable landmarks around the Mall.
- mseebach 14y ago
  This kind of drones are relatively slow. The perimeter around in the president in any exposed situation is pretty large. Any appearance of unidentified flying objects on the scene is likely to trigger an evacuation of any key targets. For the kind of payloads small drones can carry, and with no possibility of changing the target, you don't even need to move the target very far for the strike to be non-lethal. On the other hand, you could build a cruise missile (essentially a drone) that might be big and fast enough to hit your target. But those date back to WWII, so if they keep the Secret Service up at night, it's a pretty exhausted security detail by now.
sliverstorm 14y ago
You don't necessarily need a wireless link. You can always use preprogrammed routes. Scouts can simply log data and return with it later, much like the spy planes of old using film cameras. Attacks can similarly be preprogrammed; bombers in war, for example, tend to have fixed targets. It's the interceptors that would prove the most difficult to operate autonomously; they are the only one whose primary purpose is never fixed. Rolling with the idea of a drone dystopia, as drones get smart enough you could even rely on the drone to make its own decisions and respond without an external operator.
- rayiner 14y ago
  One of the things that makes cheap drones possible is easily accessible, off-the-shelf, cheap and lightweight computer/GPS/wireless hardware. Losing GPS and having to use inertial guidance makes the problem a lot more expensive and complicated, and advanced AI is like manned missions to mars--always further off than it looks.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    Ok, so you are specifically referring to GPS. I agree, GPS is important for cheap and easy navigation. I was presuming you were talking about a link to a base-station. Of course, aren't all the GPS satellites already government satellites in the first place? Seems like they wouldn't need to jam the signal, they could just shut them down, or maybe GPS can be set to require authentication...

jules 14y ago

In the past a dictator always had to depend on large numbers of other people to enforce his power. That means that if enough people are fed up with him, he will lose his power. It is really scary to imagine a future where a handful of people or even a single person can physically control the entire population. This is of course not a binary change, but a gradual one. Before guns, a dictator had to keep perhaps 30% of the population happy. With guns a much smaller number of people could control a much larger number. Autonomous weapon systems like drones are just the logical conclusion.

mseebach 14y ago
Which neatly sums up the argument for the second amendment.
- scarmig 14y ago
  Second amendment remedies will be rather... lacking when it comes to 24/7 surveillance by armed drones flying above the sky. It's scary but increasingly inevitable that panopticon surveillance of all open physical spaces will happen. Having a rifle isn't going to do much to escape or counteract that.
- hindsightbias 14y ago
  Maybe you're trying to be ironical, but the 2nd Amendment reads "being necessary to the security of a free State" As in, "free to form militias to beat down slave rebellions" So unless you've got a problem with your slaves, not sure it's so neat.
  - n3rdy 14y ago
    Was about to post what a perversion that interpretation is of the 2nd amendment, but holy cow can't actually argue with that. What a shame they wrote "free state", but then again, they were forming a new government, so what should we have expected? And if actions speak louder than words, most of the founders who served as presidents didn't exactly "walk the walk" constitutionally when they held that position.

speik 14y ago

They already are used domestically. One was used in North Dakota to track and arrest armed subjects (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-a...). Another was used in Austin, TX to do recon for a drug raid (http://www.kvue.com/news/DPS-using-drones-to-fight-crime-locally-114518554.html http://www.kvue.com/news/DPS-using-drones-to-fight-crime-loc...). Granted they are not widespread yet, but the seal has definitely been broken.