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Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

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Re: Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

#41

Post by CapitalistCartr »

dchichkov wrote: post #33
blake8086 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this "we" you speak of?

Civilized humanity? As in the opposite to fundamentalists?

Yeah, not really. I'm a proud American citizen; I spent six years in the US Air Force. But I have no illusions as to our military, and the uses to which our Congress puts it, as representing "Civilized humanity, . . . the opposite to fundamentalists".

We spend about as much money as the rest of the World put together on our military, and have a force about equal to the rest of the World put together. This allows us to live in a unique position in history. We can assume our safety from the horrors most of humanity have experienced; we can go about our daily lives without concern for dire, hellish possibilities. It allows us to plan for, and save for, lesser emergencies only.

As a WASP male I am incredibly fortunate to live in the time and place I do. But we aren't somehow superior to our enemies because of this stroke of luck.

Re: Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

#42

Post by DamnYuppie »

mcantelon wrote: post #16
DamnYuppie wrote: post #8

I believe most right thinking people in this world are terrified of the military power of the USA. Even I, being a US citizen, am starting to become very concerned with our military weapons and their usage as they seem far more likely to be turned on us then our enemies. Call me a nut job if you want but we are all just a proclamation away from being "domestic terrorists".

Post-9/11 "counter-terrorism" has been almost entirely a pretext under which to develop domestic counter-insurgence. Future political instability is likely due to a number of factors and they may be preparing to maintain federal power in the face of this.

That is how see things as well.

Re: Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

#44

Post by axusgrad »

tunesmith wrote: post #14
pavel_lishin wrote: post #2

With the sound off, it could almost be a Lexx trailer.

With the sound on, it sounds as if it is marketed for 14-year-olds. Are military presentations actually like this? Makes me think we need more women in those positions.

I was wondering if they took their font from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or if they both took it from the same place.

Re: Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

#45

Post by dchichkov »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #41
dchichkov wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civilized humanity? As in the opposite to fundamentalists?

Yeah, not really. I'm a proud American citizen; I spent six years in the US Air Force. But I have no illusions as to our military, and the uses to which our Congress puts it, as representing "Civilized humanity, . . . the opposite to fundamentalists". We spend about as much money as the rest of the World put together on our military, and have a force about equal to the rest of the World put together. This allows us t…

We are making investments into science and technology. For example, technology that protects biosphere on earth from complete extinction by an asteroid strike. Countries with fundamental regimes, generally do not. Good enough?

Re: Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

#47

Post by jamieb »

pekk wrote: post #21
sukuriant wrote: post #19

This sounds quite wonderful --- for the open battlefield. I quite support the use of anything humane that can reasonably improve our soldiers' intel on the ground, as intelligence is everything in a war. That said. I am terrified of the thought that this could be used against a country's own denizens, be it by the police, or by the military actively seeking out targets of their own. Furthermore, while this is being d…

I am really not sure why the inevitable conclusion is that the US will direct every bad technology against its own citizens. Does it not occur to anyone that they might be at least as likely to be attacked by non-governmental groups?

More US Citizens have been killed by the Federal Government than by any other organized group. The military has been involved with strike breaking [1]. The military was used to suppress the southern states from seceding from the union. [2] Say what you want about the horrors of slavery, but the southern states had the right to secede and were suppressed militarily. More recently, the President has suspended the 4th amendment, and, quite relevant to this article, authorized murder of US Citizens using drones.

These are facts. There's no leaping to conclusions here.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War#Causes_of_se...

Re: Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

#49

Post by corresation »

arbuge wrote: post #22

"When I watch that simulation I am horrified. I also think to myself, this technology is more likely to diminish American security than to enhance it." Quite so, but that's no argument for the US not working on it anyway. The enemy will have it eventually no matter what. We might as well have it too.

Somehow this made me think of the Indiana Jones / Tomb Raider movies: In both if the protagonist simply stayed uninvolved the various artifacts would never have been found. It is often the way with US military (perhaps replace never with "not for much longer"): Most enemy and potential enemy designs and innovations are the direct result of espionage on the efforts of the US.

Re: Like a Swarm of Lethal Bugs: The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet

#50

Post by derringer »

karpathy wrote: post #31

Just in case someone is wondering, we are not even remotely close to technology like this. The control problem is very hard, but the perception problem perhaps even harder, Especially when most of the processing needs to be done onboard because you need the perception to be part of the control loop and work at reasonably high frequencies. Higher-level perception tasks such as identifying power lines or people are eve…

Identifying power lines and people isn't necessarily as hard as you say. With a simple image, it's true machines can't match human perception. But when you take into account infrared for viewing human profiles, magnetic sensors for checking for power lines and the fact that the bots are mobile and can investigate and base their analysis on 3d space. The computational bang for your buck is also continuing to improve and sensors are continuing to get smaller. These systems aren't possible yet, but they may be in the relatively near future.
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