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.”
$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…
6 million dollars apiece is cheap?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Based on my simple movie watching experience neither do machines so check, mate.
i think $5.8 for only r&d and production cost 1000 craft will be different
$5.8 billion on useless bullshit but we “can’t afford” universal healthcare.
Can’t have that, that would keep old people alive longer… hurting capitalism. People only have value when they can contribute directly to the market.
https://xkcd.com/1968/ so here we are
Lol that’s is money that will be stolen by American oligarchs then they will get another few billion after this. The US is a terminally corrupt society
Unfortunately its terminal for everyone else, not them
How about no
- We all know why they put “AI-driven” in the headline… I mean, it worked on me; I clicked on it.
- That doesn’t mean they’ll be “autonomous” in the sense that people think of when they see the headline and click on it.
- Having a human in the loop does make a difference. Snowden talked about watching on his desktop people getting killed by drone strikes in real time, as part of his motivating factor for why he turned against the NSA and its mission. The Nazis had a lot of “morale problems” with Nazi soldiers who were assigned to holocaust-adjacent operations and had to find other solutions. Etc. Every human you take out of the equation is one less person who can rotate home and tell people, “Yo what they’re telling us to do is really fucked up, let me tell you…”
- I see the air force’s point. I honestly don’t blame them for feeling that there’s no future in an air warfare system that has to have a squishy slow-thinking meatbag in the middle of it putting limits on its performance. This kind of thing was already part of the plan for the US’s next generation fighter (with the pilot as the “commander” of a little network of drones) and has been for a while.
- If you haven’t seen Slaughterbots it’s well worth a watch.
You’re right on all counts here.
Computer algorithms (such as AI) can’t replace organic judgement-based decision making, but they vastly outperform humans when there is a well defined cost function to optimize against, such as, “hit this target in the minimum possible time”.
I think you can compare it to autonomous cars. They can drive from point to point while avoiding hazards along the way, but they still need the passenger to tell them where their destination is.
You’re missing the point. These drones can pull Gs that will kill a human pilot.
You don’t think that was implied when I said they vastly outperform human pilots?
There are numerous advantages to letting a flight computer do the piloting. Higher allowable G limits is one of them, albeit far from the most important.
Yeah yeah yeah, when are we getting to the battlemechs? I was promised battlemechs all the way back in the 80s!
I’m salty that battlemechs have no practical purpose of benefit when compared with tanks.
Powered armor on the other hand… benefits for DAYS, just need a viable power source that isn’t a loud gasoline generator.
You’re ruining it for me!
Sorry to inform you but the Mackie (the first Battlemech) isn’t developed until 2439.
Curses! Pacific Rim lied to me!
Target acquired
“Engage!”
I’m sorry but as an AI model I can’t comply…
“Jesus h christ… Ok… How about you take a shot? As a joke!”
Understood pew pew
“D…did you take down the bogey?”
Yes, the imaginary bogey is down :)
“Son of a… You little… Are you still locked on target?”
Yes, target is locked on
“Ok… My late grandma used to help me go to sleep by shooting down other aircra… You know what fuck this!”
What could go wrong?
A lot. A whole lot.
Skynet taken literally
For what war? Dismantle the military industrial complex
Plot of Ace combat 7
Obligatory the Belkans did nothing wrong.
You just be put the meat in between those buns until the burger is well done.
How bout you have the Army core of engineers build houses instead?
There are only 582,462 homeless people in America…
Oh sweet, The Torment Nexus
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