Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first • Hacker News Board

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#231

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 8:30 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #73

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.

>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.

Drones don't remove people from the battlefield, they further the trend of there being no boundary to "the battlefield", putting everyone on it.

They can, depending on how they are employed, reduce the casualties (total and particularly civilian) on both sides of a conflict for any degree of military impact (Ukraine's recent strike against Russian bombers is an example), or they can increase the civilian death toll for marginal military impact (the accounts of Israeli gun- and missile-armed drones directly targeting civilians in Gaza being an example of what that could look like.)

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#232

Post by cess11 » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 8:36 PM UTC

greenavocado wrote: post #222

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.

Let's review what Uncle Ted had to say about this. See paragraph 87 by searching for "THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS" https://dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/items/IndustrialSocietyAnd...

The conclusion is succinct and the stuff leading up to it of dubious quality.

"92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research."

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#233

Post by mensetmanusman » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 8:39 PM UTC

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.

That’s why only the strong communities with strong families will survive, because even lunatics are cared for in strong community structures.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#234

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 8:42 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #154

tryauuum wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It did not historically stop conscription in the US though, so I do not think it would do so anywhere else.

The Second Amendment was expressly (its even in the text) to protect the ability of the state to have and rely on a militia to mobilize against internal and external security threats, not to deny the state the ability to do so and force it rely on professional forces.

Large, permanent, professional internal and external security forces were not something the framers of the Constitution trusted, and the Second Amendment was, as much as anything, a way to reduce the temptation to rely on those instead of summoning a posse (for law enforcement) or conscription (for war, when necessary), rather than a way to prevent conscription.

They ultimately failed at that, too, though.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#235

Post by cess11 » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 8:44 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #73

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.

>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."

You're mistaking the removal of certain soldiers for "removing people". There will absolutely be people in future battle fields, mainly civilians, or as we call them now, terrorists.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#236

Post by Lu2025 » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 8:59 PM UTC

worldsayshi wrote: post #133

WastedCucumber wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not so sure. Russia arranged a lot of "worst case scenarios" for all of us. It will take a lot of effort to get to "okay" again.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#237

Post by Lu2025 » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 9:01 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #173

energy123 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 civi…

47 second is the best artillery response I've seen in Russia Ukraine war.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#238

Post by spaceman_2020 » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 9:03 PM UTC

jolt42 wrote: post #43

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of this stuff is getting to the point where we will seriously need to have a global talk on whether we should put a pin in this tech or not

why? if nuclear weapons got the green light, do you expect a different outcome?

Weapon that threatens everyone is better than weapon that threatens only some

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#239

Post by switchbak » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 9:06 PM UTC

geysersam wrote: post #109

switchbak wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should come back to this in a few years, I think this will have aged worse than the old dropbox comment. Governments are falling over themselves to: acquire drones, figure out how to defend against existing and future drones, and to figure out how to exploit them well. Given the recent attack against Russian bombers, I find it hard to take you seriously here. Hell, the US knows it can't compete with China on…

As if the US can compete with china on drone numbers or quality. If drones are the future of war, China will have an enormous advantage in a future war. Let's hope it never comes to that.

Agree 100%, it's a funny strategy but also shows how weak the US hand is - China can pump out extraordinary numbers of these things, and they have pretty incredible tech talent. I wish I didn't live in such interesting times.

Re: Autonomous drone defeats human champions in racing first

#240

Post by switchbak » Thu, Jun 05, 2025, 9:10 PM UTC

stackedinserter wrote: post #160

switchbak wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should come back to this in a few years, I think this will have aged worse than the old dropbox comment. Governments are falling over themselves to: acquire drones, figure out how to defend against existing and future drones, and to figure out how to exploit them well. Given the recent attack against Russian bombers, I find it hard to take you seriously here. Hell, the US knows it can't compete with China on…

Dude, it's not a prediction, it's what is currently happening. If you follow active drone units (from both sides) you'll see that they're all controlled by operators until the last frame. These bombers attacks were done with manual control too. These drones had LTE modems and on footage it's clearly visible that they controlled by operator. People can't read these days, especially if it doesn't match the reality they…

Oh I see - emphasis on the 'autonomous' part, yeah I would agree on that for today. Things are pretty immature on the autonomous side right now, but that will definitely change ... it's still the military, so it'll take a while, but they'll do it when they're forced to.

I'll skip the shitty retort about not reading.