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Eleanor Saitta

@wonka
Not having effective iff or visual human confirmation means you turn your semi-autonomous munitions into fratecide machines.

Shockingly, there are reasons for many of these laws and reasons why states signed them that don't have anything to do with human rights, too.
@graydon @dr2chase @cstross @isaackuo

12 comments
Isaac Ji Kuo replied to Eleanor

@dymaxion @wonka @graydon @dr2chase @cstross

Yeah, I didn't want to get into the legal and ethical considerations, since there are practical reasons to consider that I felt like diving into.

Now, the thing is ... we don't have to just speculate on autonomous munition fratricide machines. We've had them for some time in the forms of mines and homing torpedoes. And these are still relevant as the heavy use in Ukraine shows.

Basically, it's about defining a kill box. Mines are, of course

1/2

Isaac Ji Kuo replied to Isaac Ji Kuo

@dymaxion @wonka @graydon @dr2chase @cstross

passively limited to an initially set kill box.

Homing torpedoes, in contrast, need navigation capabilities to be able to use a kill box. But the idea is quintessentially the same as a mine field - the torpedo will try to kill anything it finds in the kill box (possibly with additional sensor profile parameters), but it will NOT try to kill something outside the kill box.

This system isn't perfect, but it's a starting point.

2/2

Eleanor Saitta replied to Isaac Ji Kuo

@isaackuo
Yeah. I feel like the ground environment is a lot more complex, though — like, yes, if you're using this in the context of an initial push on a trench line or defense against the same, sure, but once you're in the middle of breaking through or reacting to contact in a disordered environment, or in basically any urban context at all, it's going to be a lot messier, especially if you're taking advantage of them as light standoff weapons and running them a couple km out
@wonka @graydon @dr2chase @cstross

@isaackuo
Yeah. I feel like the ground environment is a lot more complex, though — like, yes, if you're using this in the context of an initial push on a trench line or defense against the same, sure, but once you're in the middle of breaking through or reacting to contact in a disordered environment, or in basically any urban context at all, it's going to be a lot messier, especially if you're taking advantage of them as light standoff weapons and running them a couple km out
@wonka @graydon @dr2chase

Isaac Ji Kuo replied to Eleanor

@dymaxion @wonka @graydon @dr2chase @cstross

Yeah, there's definitely limitations. It's like using artillery laid mines, although these could probably be reused so that alters the logistical calculations.

I'm just pointing out that it IS possible to employ fully autonomous killbots, in a manner that is already familiar to military users, even without IFF systems.

Eleanor Saitta replied to Isaac Ji Kuo

@isaackuo
Definitely, with sufficient limitations. It feels like a lot of the lethality is down to the precision of fully-intelligent terminal guidance. As a jamming backup it's an on obvious win, but as a primary, it's less clear.
@wonka @graydon @dr2chase @cstross

Isaac Ji Kuo replied to Eleanor

@dymaxion @wonka @graydon @dr2chase @cstross

There's this vision that many are fascinated by, of locust swarms of drones sweeping the enemy off the battlefield.

I can understand the appeal to Raytheons and Raytheon wannabes. Selling millions of expensive drones to the US military sounds like a pretty sweet way to rake in megabucks, right?

But I'm more puzzled by how much this idea dazzles ordinary folks. Without full autonomy, massive drone swarms are a C3 non-starter. With it ... ehh ...

Graydon replied to Isaac Ji Kuo

@isaackuo @dymaxion @wonka @dr2chase @cstross The problem is incredibly hard. Rested, trained humans aren't good at it. (and in a conflict like Ukraine, with similar troops, uniforms, and equipment, it's even worse.)

The capability to do "artificial biting insect" is near-term, if it's not poorly-distributed-present.

I expect someone is going to go for what they can build. It's how we got chemical warfare in the Great War; it's at least a chunk of how we got napalm and cluster munitions.

Isaac Ji Kuo replied to Graydon

@graydon @dymaxion @wonka @dr2chase @cstross

I don't really know precisely what you mean by an "artificial biting insect", but Ukraine is already using pretty much the least expensive FPV drones practical. If you want something smaller, it'll be more expensive and have much less range and endurance.

Eleanor Saitta replied to Isaac Ji Kuo

@isaackuo
See up thread — an absolute minimum hardware cost terminal guidance package that e.g. might not even be able to handle a bounding box in a gps-denied environment, because good inertials are expensive and video terrain guidance is expensive at the resolution needed.
@graydon @wonka @dr2chase @cstross

Graydon replied to Isaac Ji Kuo

@isaackuo Ukraine's adapting commercial hardware, like early Great War aircraft using rotary engines originally designed for motorcycles. A state-equivalent actor starting today and setting out to make an invader's costs unbearable isn't going to start there.

There's work going into "looks like a bird", "smallest practical flying robot", and so on. "How small and cheap can something be and have a 5% PK against human targets for a day?" isn't a quadcopter.

@dymaxion @wonka @dr2chase @cstross

Isaac Ji Kuo replied to Graydon

@graydon @dymaxion @wonka @dr2chase @cstross

How do you know it's not a quadcopter? A quadcopter is extremely simple and cheap. The monospinner is even simpler and cheaper, but it's much slower and less maneuverable.

There are a lot of cheap RC toy drones, including drones with only two props and motors. But these aren't maneuverable enough to attack a target. The quadcopter seems to be the cheapest option that's also maneuverable enough to be used as a guided weapon.

Eleanor Saitta replied to Isaac Ji Kuo

@isaackuo
I think with r&d time and volume to get the quirks out, tricopters might win — slightly more complex, but less battery (and thus more payload) for the same weight and perf envelope. I don't see much going further afield than that winning soon, though.
@graydon @wonka @dr2chase @cstross

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