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Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

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Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#171

Post by pjc50 »

randomtoast wrote: post #141
jandrese wrote: 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.

And Great Britain just announced plans to deliver 100,000 of them to Ukraine. Ukraine lacks the manpower compared to Russia. It seems logical to strengthen their forces by deploying these flying mini terminators. I believe we are not far from large-scale drone warfare. In World War II, we had epic tank and aircraft battles; now, the time has come for autonomous drone battlefields.

Missed that news; https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/britain-p...

I think we're already deep into large-scale drone warfare. Destroying a third of the enemy heavy bomber fleet is pretty substantial. It feels to me like that attack operated like Pearl Harbor, a marker that the old way of surface naval warfare / air attack was being replaced by a new one.

Don't forget that Russia has their own drones. They were the first to deploy the fiber-optic cable drones as an anti-ECM measure. And of course both sides are ordering parts from China.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#172

Post by Gud »

impossiblefork wrote: post #85
trhway wrote: 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.

I did my conscription service in 2005-2006(iirc), plus one tour in Kosovo and another in Afghanistan.

This is the first I hear that this would be the motivation.

The main motivation is that for a small country like Sweden to have enough manpower to defend itself adequately, conscription is necessary.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#173

Post by pjc50 »

energy123 wrote: post #117
jandrese wrote: 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?

Combined arms is the probable solution for a Ukraine type war. As soon as your expensive laser lights up, it's got a couple of minutes to move before artillery shells arrive.

Of course deeper into Russia that's safe .. but instead you have the problem of a huge area to cover. You can protect a few high value targets but not everywhere. Consider something like the early stages of the Iraq war: target every single civilian electrical substation and petrol station with a drone bombing.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#174

Post by [deleted] »

jandrese wrote: 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.

[deleted]

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#175

Post by wepple »

bri3d wrote: 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…

> The spec DCL drone isn't very capable compared to the more open-specification drones in racing leagues like MultiGP

Yeah, I’m sure this is a great milestone but it isn’t notable until AI is beating MCK[1] who would be the “Lee Sodol of FPV”

[1] https://youtu.be/fmc1URVdyUs?si=jPPx5sHjU_ZDOghF

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#176

Post by pjc50 »

tryauuum wrote: post #153
graemep wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe it's unrelated to the thread topic, but the benefit of the American 2 amendment system is that the conscription officer knows he can be shot in the face when visiting the home of an unwilling conscript. Maybe this would have prevented the war with Ukraine

> the conscription officer knows he can be shot in the face when visiting the home of an unwilling conscript

Generally such conscripts realize they're dooming their family to at best prison and at worst dying in the raid on their home.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#177

Post by pjc50 »

gattr wrote: post #134
trhway wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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".

+1 for mentioning that movie; I watched it a month ago and it's hilarious. Nearest I've seen to live action with giant robot anime sensibilities.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#178

Post by pjc50 »

bamboozled wrote: post #81
tonyarkles wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The child comments from yours are mentioning nuclear weapons as a parallel but there's one big difference between drone tech and nuclear weapons: plutonium is really hard to make. We might be able to put a pin in this tech from a policy perspective, but the cat is way out of the bag as far as the tech goes. A cell phone already has all of the sensors you need baked right into it (honestly, we can thank mobile devices…

A lunatic will be able to wipe out school children playing outside and have little chance of getting caught, for example. Nice.

> A lunatic will be able to wipe out school children playing outside and have little chance of getting caught, for example.

America insists on making sure that guns are universally available so that school shootings can still happen. Doesn't register. The death toll seems to be politically acceptable.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#179

Post by pjc50 »

stackedinserter wrote: post #162
dghlsakjg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? One of the theories for why there were tires on top of the russian planes that were bombed is that it confuses automatic targeting systems by breaking up the profile of the airplane used in automatic target recognition systems. Hell, even hobbyist level DIY drone stuff can be easily programmed to run an autonomous route with or without a radio link connection. This is a huge reason that GPS is just cons…

Sigh. The tires on the planes thing is very clear to anyone who served in russian/soviet army. > Hell, even hobbyist level DIY drone stuff can be easily programmed Lock on a moving target and hit it is not the same as put waypoints in INAV. My point was that there's still no mass adoption of target locking or self-aiming drones, overwhelming majority of hits, on both sides, are done with regular FPV drones with very…

> The tires on the planes thing is very clear to anyone who served in russian/soviet army.

Why is this, for the rest of us?

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#180

Post by pjc50 »

stackedinserter wrote: post #8
jandrese wrote: 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.

OTOH there's no mass adoption of autonomous drones after 3+ years of real active war between two technologically advanced nations.

I think people are missing the word "autonomous" here, which means you're right .. so far. I wouldn't bet against it changing.
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