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Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

tudelft.nl

131–140 of 342 posts

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, if you are smart enough to fashion this without being caught, you are too smart to do something like that. Plus, you got a cool and potentially lucrative hobby, designing exterminator machines. Why bother with children at that point? There are much, much better targets to be had. Your point on the dwindling barrier to implementation stands.

> Why bother with children at that point? the premise is that the person doing it is very mentally ill. the question, "why would they do that when they could do something else that makes more sense?", doesn't make a lot of sense itself under the premise.

If a person is very ill mentally then there are already many ways to kill people in numbers, some of which ways are much more accessible than slaughterbots.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#132
post #4

This is only a few days after the massive drone attack in Russia. Only a matter of time until we have drones smart enough to dodge bullets (or at least dodge out of where guns are pointing) while flying at breakneck speeds being controlled by AIs we don't fully understand. The tech industry is working hard to bring about the Terminator future.

All hard countered by a laser like the Iron Beam, no? Unless there's a hard counter to the hard counter?

The obvious counter to a laser could be 'more drones'? And maybe just have the drones sneak up close to the ground.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! I found it to be almost too optimistic or unbelievably hopeful.

Same here. I think I hadn't ever felt so hopeful for the future as I was while reading that book. I doubt that our world will turn out so positive.

It will likely come out somewhere in between our fears and our hopes. So it's good that we double down on imagining hopeful scenarios. Makes it easier to realize them.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#134
post #73
post #4

This is only a few days after the massive drone attack in Russia. Only a matter of time until we have drones smart enough to dodge bullets (or at least dodge out of where guns are pointing) while flying at breakneck speeds being controlled by AIs we don't fully understand. The tech industry is working hard to bring about the Terminator future.

>drones smart enough to dodge bullets well, there will be similarly smart "predator"/defense drones. The humans will have no chances on such a battlefield populated by thousands drones per square kilometer fighting each other. >The tech industry is working hard to bring about the Terminator future. And i think removing people from the battlefield is a good thing. >or at least dodge out of where guns are pointing just…

I agree, but I'm a bit disappointed it will probably come to this, instead of having a mano a mano like in the movie "Robot Jox".

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#136
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is understandable pure-logic thinking until you're the one to be made battlefield-relevant. And if you look at Russia your logic does fail on that example - no amount of human losses affect Russia's behavior in the current war as they are sure that Ukraine will run out of soldiers before Russia does. So, from Russia's POV the faster the grinder the sooner their victory.

No. Here in Sweden we instituted mandatory military service we did so because we wanted to ensure that there was no military class that if they decide to can take over. We knew the cost, and the cost is worth it. In normal times the cost is simply to do ones mandatory military service. This protects against coups, ensures your power in society and prevents groups of officers and soldiers etc. from taking over.

This is similar to the argument behind the American constitutional right to own guns.

In both cases I very much doubt that people lacking the training, organisation and weaponry of the professional military will be able to beat them in contemporary circumstances.

I realise military service means people have some training, but as much as the professionals? What about air cover, heavy weaponry, communications? What about timing - a coup might be over before conscripts can react.

Most of all, is there historical evidence this works?

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#137
post #26

This is quite cool since past efforts in this direction have usually relied on crutches like outside-in imaging and positioning. A few details I picked up: * The drones are a spec drone across the league. It's a fairly large-footprint FPV racing drone (it's a 5" propped drone, but it's very stretched out and quite heavy) with both a Betaflight flight controller and a Jetson Orin NX onboard. Teams were only allowed an…

I imagine the slower speed is a closer fit to combat drones (which have a payload and sometimes a fiber optic cable)? Also watching MultiGP they sorta move/accelerate too fast for me to fully appreciate the maneuvering. Feels kinda similar to the innovation around manned aircraft about 100 years ago when we went from toy/observation platform to killing machine in only a couple of decades. With the ardupilot news toda…

> which have a payload and sometimes a fiber optic cable

The optic cable is for the human pilot. An AI piloted drone doesn't need it.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#138
post #73
post #4

This is only a few days after the massive drone attack in Russia. Only a matter of time until we have drones smart enough to dodge bullets (or at least dodge out of where guns are pointing) while flying at breakneck speeds being controlled by AIs we don't fully understand. The tech industry is working hard to bring about the Terminator future.

>drones smart enough to dodge bullets well, there will be similarly smart "predator"/defense drones. The humans will have no chances on such a battlefield populated by thousands drones per square kilometer fighting each other. >The tech industry is working hard to bring about the Terminator future. And i think removing people from the battlefield is a good thing. >or at least dodge out of where guns are pointing just…

> And i think removing people from the battlefield is a good thing.

I agree with your other points, but this only helps with (physically) extending the battlefield, at least going by the current war in Ukraine. It's not only the line of contact that is now part of the battlefield, there's also a band of 10-15 kilometres (if not more) on each side which is now part of the active battlefield because of the use of drones.

Even though I have to admit that it looks like the very big power asymmetry in favour of cheap drones over almost everything that moves down bellow (from mere soldiers on foot to armoured vehicles) has helped with actually decreasing the number of total casualties (just one of the many paradoxes of war), as it is now way too risky to get out in the open so soldiers do it way less compared with the pre-drone era.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Here in Sweden we instituted mandatory military service we did so because we wanted to ensure that there was no military class that if they decide to can take over. We knew the cost, and the cost is worth it. In normal times the cost is simply to do ones mandatory military service. This protects against coups, ensures your power in society and prevents groups of officers and soldiers etc. from taking over.

This is similar to the argument behind the American constitutional right to own guns. In both cases I very much doubt that people lacking the training, organisation and weaponry of the professional military will be able to beat them in contemporary circumstances. I realise military service means people have some training, but as much as the professionals? What about air cover, heavy weaponry, communications? What abo…

The people doing the mandatory military service is the army. There is no army without the mass army.

They can at least shoot machine guns and carbines, use artillery etc. Even elite units such as jaeger troops/commandos are ordinary people, not necessarily people who stay for longer than their military service.

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