Automation is the big deal. Drones have cameras so humans can make a (hopefully) informed disision to strike or not. When (read; now) the drone doesn’t need a camera because it can make the call without a human in the loop, we have removed a vital bottleneck.
The only thing that stopped WWI from being total war is that when we wipped out an entire generation, we needed time to grow more troops. If autonomous weapons being manufactured autonomously by autonomously constructed factories… whoever controled the drones could of conquered the world.
No, that assumes that resources and energy are unlimited. This is the main problem with any “grey goo” scenario.
And it wasn’t people being killed that stopped WW2. People are killed in every war. The defensive weaponry was more powerful than the offensive weaponry. Machine guns were only used on defense because they were heavy. Also, artillery was not mechanized so it was hard to move everything forward quickly.
I mean, yeah. I Did A Thing did a video on exactly this a year or so back. His setup was a complete shitshow as they had to change robo-dogs at the last second (because Michael Reeves and OfflineTV didn’t want to get sued by Boston Dynamics) but the principle was sound.
But also? You are never going to replace a well trained soldier with this. Even with a proper gimbal mount, you aren’t doing rapid precise shots.
But also… you don’t need to. The advantage to this is to have a relatively low cost platform to handle suppressive fire or fire an anti-tank shot or whatever. Something where you would otherwise be risking a human being.
I mean… that is another I Did A Thing video (the knife missile is Backyard/Backdoor Scientist). Well, I Did A Thing, Michael Reeves, random ass kids, etc.
Gun+Computer Vision = Autonomous Sentry Turret. Reeves and Aleks made things “harder” by trying to specifically identify faces. But it doesn’t take much to realize that shooting at anything identified as a human approaching on an active battlefield is a LOT easier. And will likely be necessary as more and more “C4 duct taped to a drone” attacks are used against airfields and the like.
Israel is already assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists with autonomous/remote-controlled gun platforms. The last one I’ve heard of apparently was able to use facial recognition and shoot the scientist in his car sparing the other passengers.
Next to that, putting the platform on a Spot seems almost trivial. Maybe one day they’ll be able to airdrop a bot, have it walk kilometers across a forest, and place itself in a position to snipe someone marked for death by one State or another.
If you allow them down then they will get pulled into the atmosphere and burn up. The ISS stays in orbit because it’s moving so fast and needs a push now and again to keep the speed up.
Space Garbage Men, job of the future. In all seriousness, I’m glad they’re looking at solutions, because this issue can get out of hand very fast from what I’ve read. If we had no regard for the build up of space trash, we could have a halo of debris making leaving the planet impossible, or at the very least, dangerous.
Anyone still remembers when they said they would never use dog robots for weapon/war purposes? I do. Things always age like milk and it’s unsurprising.
Boston Dynamics said that, and they have stuck to that commitment. IIRC it’s even in the contract when you buy a robot from them that you will not equip it with a weapon.
This article is about Ghost Robotics, which has never made such a commitment. They are known to supply gun-equipped robots to governments at all levels.
interestingengineering.com
Active