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The US Air Force wants $5.8 billion to build 1,000 AI-driven unmanned combat aircraft, possibly more, as part of its next generation air dominance initiative

The US Air Force wants $5.8 billion to build 1,000 AI-driven unmanned combat aircraft, possibly more, as part of its next generation air dominance initiative::The unmanned aircraft are ideal for suicide missions, the Air Force says. Human rights advocates call the autonomous lethal weapons “slaughterbots.”

treadful ,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

This shit is inevitable but damn am I not looking forward to robot genocide. It’ll be so much easier if all you need is some money and a few distant operators. International law won’t do shit when there’s money on the line.

Robot v. robot “conventional” wars won’t be much better, either. Without human casualties there’s not really any consequences or reason for any party to capitulate. So either you have to completely starve your opponent of resources or start targeting civilians. The latter being way more effective and cheaper.

Asafum ,

Boeing and the like are probably stocking up on extra suits as they can’t stop drooling all over themselves.

War with minimal casualties just means more and more money to steal from us to dump into military technology corps for longer periods of time since the population won’t be in an uproar over loss of life.

Corkyskog ,

Can they at least live stream it so there is something good to watch? I am running low on bread and this circus is getting boring.

tankplanker ,

I think the other side hacking them and turning them against their owners is more likely as it will be cheaper and easier to do that making your own robots. Zero chance that these will be unhackable as they will still have remote communication.

ArbitraryValue ,

$5.8 billion for a thousand combat drones? That’s incredibly cheap, especially since the implication is that this includes amortized R&D costs and the per-unit cost will eventually be even lower.

As for “slaughterbots” - I’m not sure why some people are inclined to trust human soldiers more than machines. Humans don’t exactly have the best track record for minimizing violence…

mean_bean279 ,

Based on my simple movie watching experience neither do machines so check, mate.

JoeClu ,
@JoeClu@lemmy.world avatar

6 million dollars apiece is cheap?

nuke ,

The F35 costs about 80 million and they sell like hotcakes. Yes, 6 million is cheap.

JoeClu ,
@JoeClu@lemmy.world avatar

Oh okay. I didn’t realize that. Wow.

captainlezbian ,

Every bolt and river has to have its entire history accounted for in case it fails

Ryumast3r ,

F35A is now down to about $70 million/piece now, which further demonstrates the point of costs coming down with mass production I think.

It originally was more like $150 million.

ArbitraryValue ,

It’s almost unbelievably cheap for a combat aircraft - over five times cheaper than an MQ-9 Reaper drone, which costs 32 million. (And Reapers aren’t capable of air-to-air combat, although they have other capabilities that these drones will probably lack.) Manned fighters cost even more. An F-35 is 80 million, and it’s a relatively low-priced jet. An F-22 costs about twice as much. Even a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is 400 thousand.

Corran1138 ,

It’s more like 2.5 billion for R&D and then 2.5 billion to create the factory that builds them and the first thousand units. The per unit cost is initially high and then comes down once all the front end work is done.

And as with many programs, the R&D phase may lead to a brand new use-case for drones or an entirely different purpose for one of the drone prototypes. So there can be unknown benefits too.

iforgotmyinstance ,

A lot of this was planned already. Primarily the capability to turn existing aircraft platforms into ‘missile trucks’ which circle an area autonomously while waiting for the F35 controller to select a target.

CapnMoisesBKind ,

Well that’s great I guess. Like the human piloting the F35 or F24 will act as a spotter then the bots will fire when instructed. It creeps me out if they will be given autonomy to fire.

AnonymousBaba ,

i think $5.8 for only r&d and production cost 1000 craft will be different

MrSpArkle ,

The problem with slaughter bots is that the chain of command to kill can be shortened to just one person.

The chain of command for a human is much more complex and can have a moral circuit breaker in every part of that chain.

scarabic ,

I’d also like to know the degree of autonomy. Just because they can fly without a human on the stick constantly doesn’t mean they are choosing their missions.

Apollo ,

The program is called ‘Loyal Wingman’ and envisages older gen airframes past their flight limits being slaved to current gen fighters like F-35.

Edit: Loyal Wingman is something different, the USN program.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I think the scary part is when one guy and an obedient AI control millions of slaughterbots.

And is that better or worse than when he dies from tripping down a stairwell but the AI remembers the whole mission.

MisterD ,

Someone saw the movie m.imdb.com/title/tt0382992/?ref_=nm_flmg_c_39_actAnd learned nothing.

TL;DR: It didn’t go well

santalloyd ,
@santalloyd@mastodon.online avatar

@L4s seriously, has no one seen the Terminator movies?!

ButtholeSpiders ,
@ButtholeSpiders@startrek.website avatar

It also proves that people who don’t understand AI, think you can simply AI everything equals success. This idea will be a huge money pit.

But, that’s exactly what the company that gets the contract is praying for.

Jsprad ,

Yeeeeah. Do you want Skynet? Because this is how you get Skynet.

mean_bean279 ,

Ahem, Acktually this would be more akin to the hit 2000s movie Stealth starring Jamie Foxx and Jessica Biel. Terminator is more like what Boston Dynamics does. 🤖

Note: “hit” is very loosely used here.

Jeredin ,

Just want to add that Macross Plus came out first and has far more amazing story - just skim Macross wiki for a history primer up to Macross 7, as Plus takes place before it. That said, if one is interested in partaking, it comes in at least two flavors: mini-series or movie. Suggestion: watch both as each has content the other doesn’t.

Blizzard ,

The irony is you just asked this to a bot.

twoshoes ,

Can’t post image replys, so I’ll just post a link:

i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/…/fd2.jpg

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Air Force is seeking a multibillion-dollar budgetary allowance to research and build at least a thousand, but possibly more, unmanned aircraft driven by AI pilots, according to service plans.

Later this year, the craft will be tested in a simulation where it will create its own strategy to chase and kill a target over the Gulf of Mexico, the Times reported.

The budgetary estimate, which Congress has not yet approved, lists $5.8 billion in planned expenses over five years to build collaborative combat aircraft, systems like Valkyrie.

Kratos Defense, which makes the Valkyrie, would not comment on collaborative combat aircraft, citing the classified nature of the program.

Other AI-weapons opponents, such as the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, call these advancements “slaughterbots” because algorithmic decision-making in weapons allows for faster combat that can increase the threats of rapid conflict escalation and unpredictability — as well as the risk of creating weapons of mass destruction.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said as far back as 2019 that “machines with the power and discretion to take lives without human involvement are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be prohibited by international law.”

The original article contains 615 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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