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Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

newscientist.com

101–110 of 223 posts

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#101
post #94

> “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” This is a clear war crime. We don’t need to update any international laws, do we? This is by definition indiscriminate, like landmines or chemical weap…

It would be my hope that unlike landmines, these might have a remote off switch/signal that can disable them after the war ends. At the very least, the battery will die and it won't fly around anymore.

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#103

We'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 the difference between a targeting a specific piece of military hardware compared to training an AI model to target humans and infrastructure is quite different. This explains why drones that get misdirected will target oil infrastructure in friendly countries.

Agreed. Even some of the latest IR missiles (AIM-9X I believe) also include a visual seeking component to compliment the IR seeker, and try to identify aircraft types based on their outlines (presumably for orienting the missile for maximum damage).

You just can't make that distinction with people, especially not if just using IR or the likes. The guy with a rifle slung over his shoulder just happens to look like the guy with carrying a rake. Hand gun in hand happens to look the same as a power drill. Someone wearing a beanie looks suspiciously like a soldier with a helmet.

This all feels like a really bad idea.

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#104
post #94

> “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” This is a clear war crime. We don’t need to update any international laws, do we? This is by definition indiscriminate, like landmines or chemical weap…

>This is a clear war crime.

Sure, but does the battlefield have any war crime police on site to enforce those laws? Because without enforcement and punishment, all laws written by man are just fake and meaningless pieces of paper. The only laws that are actually real and non-optional are the law of gravity and such.

The war crime laws were invented as a legal theater for victorious powers to persecute the losers after WW2 with a veneer of legality, for imperialist superpowers to bully the small third countries who refuse to play ball, not for something superpowers to actually abide by themselves.

Because otherwise you could prosecute thousands of western/US personnel and their leaders under the same laws they prosecuted nazi soldiers at Nuremberg for what they did in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc but you're not gonna see that because the US didn't get conquered to have its soldiers and leaders dragged to court. US even has a law that allows it to invade the Hague if its soldiers are ever to be taken to trial there for war crimes. That tells you everything you need to know about the hypocrisy and double standards of "war crime" laws. And same thing will happen to Israel, Netanyahu and other war criminals there.

The reality in the real worlds, is that 'might makes right' trumps the geneva convention and war crime laws. Whoever ends up holding the guns on top of the rubble pile is the one making the rules that everyone else is forced to abide by. That's why the US is forced to constantly outspends all other militaries on the planet combined, to ensure they're the ones writing and enforcing international laws, and never ending up in the position to be held accountable by others, because they know that if they ever do, there's a laundry list of receipts waiting for them.

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#105
post #94

> “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” This is a clear war crime. We don’t need to update any international laws, do we? This is by definition indiscriminate, like landmines or chemical weap…

Check the reality https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/YW1ldcsYwF

That area is a wasteland . No one lives walk there among civilians with a rare exception more over drive. You probably do not understand what Russia turned these areas to. It was the most populated area in Ukraine . Now it’s an empty land .

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#106
That’s a war crime, but I have seen unhinged drone operators who prefer to fly these drones than doing anything else because “they like the killing”, exact words said by one.

Technically speaking, it’s not impressive, you can train a simple local object recognition in the companion computer in the drone to fly at that specific object, so just train it on soldiers images and communicate over serial port and let the open source auto pilot do the navigation, again, nothing is that impressive, a weekend project, personally done before but not on humans and it was for good.

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#107
post #94

> “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” This is a clear war crime. We don’t need to update any international laws, do we? This is by definition indiscriminate, like landmines or chemical weap…

>This is a clear war crime. Sure, but does the battlefield have any war crime police on site to enforce those laws? Because without enforcement and punishment, all laws written by man are just fake and meaningless pieces of paper. The only laws that are actually real and non-optional are the law of gravity and such. The war crime laws were invented as a legal theater for victorious powers to persecute the losers afte…

The war crime police are busy blowing up civilian infrastructure.

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#108
post #94

> “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” This is a clear war crime. We don’t need to update any international laws, do we? This is by definition indiscriminate, like landmines or chemical weap…

It's nice to have the luxury of deciding which of the horrible choices Ukrainians face are war crimes. But by that measure, a Grad MLRS is just as much of a war crime. Everything in the grid square it obliterates will also be dead.

(For those who don't know, the Grad is the most produced MLRS ever, and the Russian army's weapon of choice for indiscriminately bombarding enemy territory)

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#109
post #94

> “We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” This is a clear war crime. We don’t need to update any international laws, do we? This is by definition indiscriminate, like landmines or chemical weap…

> like landmines

Boy do I have news for you about the use of landmines in the Ukraine war…

Re: Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

#110

This was back in 2026, before they released the Dredd series for civilian applications with onboard due processing and agents for prosecution, defense, judge, jury and executioner with millisecond response times, drastically reducing price per perpetrator.

you got me checking my calendar app

Dang, post needs a [2026] in the title, so people know this is from last century.
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