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I would like to see a mini quad copter take the recoil of a 1 g "shaped charge" (aka bullet). EDIT: ok, i found a clip of (a fairly big) drone firing a gun and it looks... not stable: https://youtu.be/FI--wFfipvA still, pretty worrisome.
A more reasonable solution to a bunch of drones terrorizing humanity (at least more reasonable than "hey let's make those drones' lives easier by setting up a giant artificially-intelligent surveillance monstrosity ! What could possibly go wrong?") would be to stock up on shotguns, birdshot, butterfly nets, and crowbars.
> In this scenario, the K/K ratio could be perhaps 3/1,000,000, assuming a 10-percent accuracy and only a single one-gram shaped charge per drone. So you "only" need 10 million drones and 10 million grams of plastic explosive? An attack of that magnitude probably requires the resources of a nation-state, so I doubt it will happen. Targeted assassinations seem more plausible.
We worry a lot about technology because the attacks sound novel, but not about the conventional ones which still (mostly) don't happen because the reality is that the actual logistical challenges of implementing them without security services noticing still hasn't fundamentally changed all that much.
>the only plausible escape from this conundrum, at least from our present vantage point, is the creation of a “supersingleton” run by a friendly superintelligence, founded upon a “post-singularity social contract.”
I didnt read the paper, but that abstract sounds firmly rooted in sci-fi with a toe in nonfiction, instead of the other way around as im sure the author believes.
K/K has been very low for at least 50 years and probably longer. The idea that a terrorist would smuggle millions of drones to cause... Car crashes... Is the stuff of a high school writing class. i am 100% positive there are cheaper and more effective tools available to cause more serious damage that currently actually exist (and have for decades), and we dont have the society the author claims.
Let's take something that's entirely possible using current technology. A small group of motivated individuals could purchase thousands of toasters and turn them into bombs and mail them all to politicians or schools or _____ and set them to all explode at the same time. But that doesn't happen. A group could use agar and antibiotics to breed up a bunch of highly-resistant MRSA and use syringes to infect half the grocery section at dozens of stores on the same day and in doing so kill tens of thousands of people. But that won't happen either.
Just because you can imagine something and not think of a reason it's impossible doesn't mean it's a realistic threat.
> In this scenario, the K/K ratio could be perhaps 3/1,000,000, assuming a 10-percent accuracy and only a single one-gram shaped charge per drone. So you "only" need 10 million drones and 10 million grams of plastic explosive? An attack of that magnitude probably requires the resources of a nation-state, so I doubt it will happen. Targeted assassinations seem more plausible.
I mean if you barred the doors to a theater and tossed a few gallons of bleach and vinegar in you could also just gas hundreds of people, but it doesn't happen. We worry a lot about technology because the attacks sound novel, but not about the conventional ones which still (mostly) don't happen because the reality is that the actual logistical challenges of implementing them without security services noticing still h…
> In this scenario, the K/K ratio could be perhaps 3/1,000,000, assuming a 10-percent accuracy and only a single one-gram shaped charge per drone. So you "only" need 10 million drones and 10 million grams of plastic explosive? An attack of that magnitude probably requires the resources of a nation-state, so I doubt it will happen. Targeted assassinations seem more plausible.
Literally nothing in this article seems like something that will actually come to pass. It's like a bad Black Mirror fanfic.
Really? I'm just waiting for some dumbass to take a cheap chinese drone, attach a blasting cap with a shape charge laced with sodium cyanide. Anybody nicked with fragments would die. And it'd cost what, $80-$100 ? It's the endgame of asymmetric warfare.
That sort of thing scares me more than weapons of mass destruction. Because they are usable by non-nation state actors and rouge nation state actors.
It's not that I'm worried anyone's going to try to take me out (like why?). It's I'm worried what sort of society we end up with when people like Larry Ellison are terrified of the above.
This makes the nation state more relevant not less. The state can best fund countermeasures and preemptive investigations. They can work with nations who will work to police themselves so they don't have to deal with the backlash involved in locals killing a million people far from home and if needed punish nation states who fail in such policing.