• Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Whoever bans them will be at a disadvantage militarily. They will never be banned for this one reason alone.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        I’m guessing the major countries will ban them, but still develop the technology, let other countries start using it, then say “well everyone else is using it so now we have to as well”. Just like we’re seeing with mini drones in Ukraine. The US is officially against automated attacks, but we’re supporting a country using them, and we’re developing full automation for our own aircraft.

      • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Whoever bans them will be at a disadvantage militarily.

        …and exactly this way of thinking will one day create “Skynet”.

        We need to be (or become) smarter than that!

        Otherwise mankind is doomed.

        • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Unfortunately this is basic game theory, so the “smart” thing is to have the weapons, but avoid war.

          Once we’ve grown past war, we can disarm, but it couldn’t happen in the opposite order.

          • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            The process of collective disarming is the path towards growing past war. And that first step is the collective banning of manufacturing such weapons.

            • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I disagree. War isn’t caused by weapons. It’s caused by racism, religious strife, economic hardship, natural resource exploitation, and more. Those need fixed before anyone will be willing to put away their weapons.

              • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                War isn’t caused by weapons.

                It’s enabled by weapons.

                And there are people who want to use weapons when they exist, simply because they exist.

                And there are people - for example weapons manufacturers - who want other people to use weapons.

                • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Obviously it’s enabled by weapons. But that strengthens my point further - the nation who reduces their weapons first loses.

                  When has a nation completely set down their weapons, and what was the effect? One obvious case that comes to mind is Ukraine, who fully denuclearized. Ever since that moment they have repeatedly been invaded by Russia (the nation who maintained the weapons).

                  What you suggest is asking for this to repeat over and over again. The only truly viable path to eradicating war, is to first eradicate the problems that cause war, then to abolish weapons.

                  If you have factual evidence that your method works, please present it. I shared hard evidence of my perspective.

          • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Once we’ve grown past war,

            But what until then? Your ideas do not provide any solutions. You just say that it is unavoidable as it is.

          • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            5 months ago

            “Basic game theory” says we should destroy this wacko system. jfc.

            TBH these kinds of sloppy arguments are a big part of why game theory is a joke. It’s fine as math (apart from misleading terminology) but a major problem is applying it to situations that are definitely not “games”.

            For example killer robots are not a game in any mathematically meaningful sense. The situation has been to be maximally simplified into a game between two people in order to reduce the situation into a simplistic analogy. This is neither science nor math. It’s no reason to condone killer robots.

      • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Once combat AI exceeds humans:

        A ban to all war, globally. Those that violate the ban will have autonomous soldier deployed on their soil.

        This is the only way it will work, no other path leads to a world without autonomous warbots. We can ban them all we want but there will be some terrorist cell with access to arduinos that can do the same in a garage. And China will never follow such a ban

        • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Yeah totally agree. The general population almost never wants to go to war - the plutocrats do.

          Once we take care of our own corrupt governance I suspect wars will rapidly disappear, and then weapons will likewise disappear.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Ok so we ban them, and some incel terminally online hacker on steroids turns 20 arduinos into bombs.

      I agree killer robots are dangerous and ethically problematic, just I don’t think banning them will keep asshats from making them, including on large scale.

      China could pump them out by the billions and we’d probably not know till they were deployed.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Probably going to get on a list here…

    Imagine how easy it would be to setup an even dozen drones in a pickup bed. Drive to a political rally, pop the bed cover, launch, drive away.

    Feed the AI dozens of your target’s images and let slip the dogs of war. Or, even lower tech, have someone controlling an overwatch drone and paint your target with a laser. The drones themselves could be cheap as hell, as long as they have a camera feed going back to, uh, some automagical targeting system. Maybe just point a cell phone at the target as if taking a picture?

    Only defense I got is a powerful, wide-spectrum frequency jammer. No idea what the legalities look like for the government using them as defensive platforms. I doubt there are laws concerning such tactics.

    Am I oversimplifying this? Devil and details and such? Comment and join me on the government’s list!

    Another thought on drone defense, maybe someone can comment. Why aren’t the Russians and Ukrainians carrying 20-gauge anti-drone shotguns? A single-shot unit with a short barrel is super light and the very definition of reliabilty. Seems ideal given that you can tweak a shotgun load 1,000 different ways for spread, distance and weight.

    Don’t know the ideal combat range, but I’ve got 8 shotguns of various sorts and I can get any sort of load, anywhere I want. Playing at my range, it’s fun to see what I get with different barrel lengths, chokes and charges. If you really want cheap, I’ve loaded homemade black powder and gravel. LOL, pretty crappy and messy, but it might do for a drone. Bonus! Now you’ve make a giant smokescreen!

    For example, I’ve got an absolute POS single-shot 20 that weighs nothing, folds in half, never fails to fire and cost about $100. Even has a cheapo red-dot on it, point and click interface. Probably take a day of testing, and a shitload of varied ammo, to shape up an anti-drone weapon. And while we’re at it, I have a 1920s single-shot 20 that would get the job done. Lightweight and you can snap the barrel on and off in seconds, 3 parts total.

    You can even get fancy and make the choke adjustable by twisting. I have such a shotgun from the 1950s, nothing new here. Choke too tight and you missed? Now it’s closer? Yank the choke off and go wide with it.

    Training young soldiers should be easy enough. My neighbor’s 22-yo wife is hell on wheels with her 20-gauge over-and-under. She’s shooting skeet at twice the range I see Russians dying from.

    So again, why not load the soldiers with such a rig? At least 1 man per squad?

    • Eiri@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I imagine by the time you see the tiny drone and are able to aim at it, it’s likely too late. And what if it’s a kamikaze drone and the explosion is bigger than anticipated?

      Telling your soldiers to shoot at that sounds riskier than “take cover as soon as you think there’s a drone”.

      Anyway my understanding is that so far drones are more useful for destroying stuff than killing people.

      A much simpler countermeasure to armed drones is a net.

      As for surveillance drones… I’m not sure militarily speaking they care all that much. The enemy already could be watching them with satellites, high altitude drones or balloons that would be nearly impossible to detect, or plain old binoculars, anyway.

      Unless it’s a covert operation, in which case the enemy launching a drone to find you is already very bad.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I have been screaming about this exact scenario for years now and I have not been able to get a single person to take it seriously. People leave such huge chunks of identity info online, it would be trivial to target someone with a detection package that could easily fit on a drone.

      There’s no real viable automatic defense options and for the life of me I feel it is only time before some rancid redneck terrorist does this.

  • marshadow@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The acronym “Laws” is a little too on the nose. I’d ask whether anyone involved in the development of these has seen the documentary film Robocop, but clearly they have and thought it was a great idea.