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US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

arstechnica.com

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Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#201

Post by avianlyric »

ACCount37 wrote: post #167
freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

In Ukraine, the first place that was bombed was the red tape factory. The drone industry was allowed to basically "do whatever as long as it works", consequences be damned. So they use civilian motors, batteries and SoCs, sketchy firmware with zero code inspection, and more. Does it work perfectly? No. It works well enough. I wonder if anyone is going to learn a lesson about overregulation. I'm not sure if "AI for re…

> I wonder if anyone is going to learn a lesson about overregulation.

Seems unlikely. Regulation and Health & Safety are both societal luxuries, which only happen once societies are stable and prosperous enough to start valuing human life beyond its ability to perform labour.

The moment the bombs start dropping, the time for luxuries also stops, and the value of human life drops to value a person can produce defending their society. There isn’t the money or resources for anything more than that.

The US (most developed democracies) places an extremely high value on the lives of soldiers, because dead soldiers in foreign wars does terrible things to politicians in power. Paying 1000X more for the same tech as Ukraine to minimise the number of service members killed using it, is a pretty small price to pay.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#202

Post by philangist »

setgree wrote: post #192
ACCount37 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ukraine, the first place that was bombed was the red tape factory. The drone industry was allowed to basically "do whatever as long as it works", consequences be damned. So they use civilian motors, batteries and SoCs, sketchy firmware with zero code inspection, and more. Does it work perfectly? No. It works well enough. I wonder if anyone is going to learn a lesson about overregulation. I'm not sure if "AI for re…

I'm not an expert but I think this is an old lesson in warfare, that guerillas can triumph over larger adversaries by being more exploratory/iterative and less rules-bound. Tolstoy tells this story in the second half of War and Peace. Likewise with Iraqi militants wreaking havoc with IEDs. People repelling an invader have every incentive to move fast.

I've just read that section of War and Peace and was blown away by the descriptions of guerrilla tactics as well as Tolstoy's way of capturing the state of mind of the Russian POWs and their ever-shifting relationships with their captors.

As an aside, the word Guerrilla (little war) was coined during Napoleon's occupation of Spain to describe the resistance effort by locals and peasants against the French army.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#203

Post by justsomehnguy »

ACCount37 wrote: post #167
freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

In Ukraine, the first place that was bombed was the red tape factory. The drone industry was allowed to basically "do whatever as long as it works", consequences be damned. So they use civilian motors, batteries and SoCs, sketchy firmware with zero code inspection, and more. Does it work perfectly? No. It works well enough. I wonder if anyone is going to learn a lesson about overregulation. I'm not sure if "AI for re…

And the consequence of this is a total lack of the consequences when something goes wrong. Complete with a PR cover-up all over the world.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#204

Post by godwinson__4-8 »

ACCount37 wrote: post #167
freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

In Ukraine, the first place that was bombed was the red tape factory. The drone industry was allowed to basically "do whatever as long as it works", consequences be damned. So they use civilian motors, batteries and SoCs, sketchy firmware with zero code inspection, and more. Does it work perfectly? No. It works well enough. I wonder if anyone is going to learn a lesson about overregulation. I'm not sure if "AI for re…

"It works well enough" is a significant understatement. I think it would be more accurate (especially given the perceptions at the outset of the war) to say that it has worked significantly better than anyone expected. Ukrainian ingenuity is single handedly driving conversations about the "future of warfare" in capitals from Brussels to DC to Beijing.

> I wonder if anyone is going to learn a lesson about overregulation.

This also misses the point imo. A simpler answer is "necessity is the mother of invention". There is value in a regime for peacetime. One is also a fool if they do not recognize needs change drastically in wartime. Two things can be true. The United States, like nearly all sensible nations, has almost always understood this and acted accordingly. On the other hand, nations that govern themselves as if they were on a perpetual war path are usually far less desirable societies. The idea that we need to speed rush "AI for killer drones" because otherwise we will find ourselves on the wrong end of an existential invasion are nonsensical. Americans would be far better off if our leaders and our people stopped acting like every potential conflict was existential.

There is no Russia on our borders. The only thing American adventures overseas have accomplished in the last two decades is making our country weaker.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#206

Post by danhodgins »

In a metaphorical sense, Ukraine is the scrappy 'startup' aka highly maneuverable speed boat that can turn on a dime, and the US Department of Defence is a cargo ship that takes years to execute a single turn. The drone playbook is out there, plain for all to see but there are too many entrenched stakeholder interests and incentives for the US to emulate the Ukraine drone playbook. You think the US would establish underground 3D printing drone factories? That would be an insult to its military industrial complex, and a tarnish on its sterling prestige, n'est ce pas?

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#207

Post by giardini »

freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

a "hole pile" of ...?!

I'm surprised that someone who uses such a phrase was working on classified hardware in the "mid and late 00s".

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#208

Post by 5upplied_demand »

milkytron wrote: post #198
5upplied_demand wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that. I like to think about how providing 4-week paid parental leave would cost $2 billion annually and actually help US families. Meanwhile we have spent over $100 billion on this war.

Considering the push for reproduction from this admin and his technocrats, I'm curious if they would consider something like this.

One would think, but the flip-side is that this supports more women in the workforce. Traditional roles of men working and women caring for kids seems like a bigger priority of this admin.

I do think it is a policy point that Democrats should absolutely be hammering them on. This is pro-worker and pro-family at very low cost.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#209

Post by scottyah »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #110
yonaguska wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the drone footage is actually pretty horrific to see.

Hopefully making the real horrors of war visible to the public/world will make war less frequent. Alas...

Humans just adapt and normalize things too quickly, so long term seeing more violence will just desensitize people and make it more acceptable. Just look at the difference between protected kids in suburbs vs kids growing up in bad areas.
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