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Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
41–50 of 223 posts
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#42[dead]
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#43I think the ancestor drones are land and sea mines, or really any kind of trap that dislocates the timing and control of the "trigger" from the person who launched it into the environment. These newer drones have just gained locomotion instead of having to wait for victims to come to them.
I'm not sure I'd consider a trap an "autonomous weapon". The trap cannot select a target. It will go off for anyone unlucky enough to step in its trigger. An autonomous drone will select a target and pull the trigger. It fills in the position of a human pulling a trigger, which is a decision. Maybe if robots began deciding where to lay mines, i could hand it to you.
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Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#44Is this any different from say, carpet-bombing an area? If so, how?
> Carpet bombing of cities, towns, villages or other areas containing a concentration of protected civilians has been considered a war crime since 1977, through Article 51 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing
Autonomous weapons have hardly been deployed yet, maybe at the Inner Korean border or some lunatic's backyard. Therefore I don't think there is any legislation for it yet. But it seems a very cruel way of killing, also considering in this particular case they didn't even send footage back. What kind of experiment was this? Maybe they didn't like to see the brutality, perhaps people begging for mercy not to be killed, giving up and showing a white flag. Indeed this isn't possible with carpet-bombing.
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#45I think the ancestor drones are land and sea mines, or really any kind of trap that dislocates the timing and control of the "trigger" from the person who launched it into the environment. These newer drones have just gained locomotion instead of having to wait for victims to come to them.
I'm not sure I'd consider a trap an "autonomous weapon". The trap cannot select a target. It will go off for anyone unlucky enough to step in its trigger. An autonomous drone will select a target and pull the trigger. It fills in the position of a human pulling a trigger, which is a decision. Maybe if robots began deciding where to lay mines, i could hand it to you.
I mean by some measure a trap can be worse, as many people have died from mines years after no conflict.
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#46We've had loitering munitions that choose their own target autonomously for a long time, for example anti-tank weapons that climb up after being released from a plane or helicopter then sit on a parachute until spotting one or more tanks and firing warheads at them. The superficial new thing here is the exact quadcopter form factor, but the significance is the new price point. You bet the loitering anti-tank weapon c…
I think autonomous drone mentioned in the article used some sort of "kill all targets" mode indiscriminently much like traditional munitions.
Right. The novelty is the cost.
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gulf war (1991) tv broadcasts of cruise missiles 100 feet above the road sure look(ed) a lot like autonomous drones on their way to killed humans to me.
Wasn't it just flying to a particular GPS, coordinate and exploding? That's quite a bit different than flying to an area and killing anything that moves...
It depends on the system. Some modern systems can react to high-value targets of opportunity, hunt for targets, or switch to a new target if the one they are after is destroyed before they get there. There are different variants of the weapons to deal with different use cases. The 1990s versions were relatively limited though.
Target selection is much more networked, automated, and adaptive than it used to be. Missiles can talk to each other.
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#48I think the ancestor drones are land and sea mines, or really any kind of trap that dislocates the timing and control of the "trigger" from the person who launched it into the environment. These newer drones have just gained locomotion instead of having to wait for victims to come to them.
And who is held responsible when they hallucinate and say, kill the wrong person or mistake a playground for a battlefield?
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#49Fully autonomous Ukrainian drones. We don't know if Russia hadn't used something before them.
The two sides are quite evenly matched
Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
#50I think the ancestor drones are land and sea mines, or really any kind of trap that dislocates the timing and control of the "trigger" from the person who launched it into the environment. These newer drones have just gained locomotion instead of having to wait for victims to come to them.
And who is held responsible when they hallucinate and say, kill the wrong person or mistake a playground for a battlefield?
The same people that are held responsible when a kid steps on a mine.