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Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

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Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#151

Post by koonsolo »

stickfigure wrote: post #98
marcus_holmes wrote: post #11

This feels like the same thing that happened with tanks. The end of WW1 saw tanks deployed effectively. WW2 was then fought using entirely new tactics and strategies enabled by tanks (not least "blitzkrieg"). Britain and France, notably, hadn't really worked out how to use them effectively and so were left fighting the last war, horribly disadvantaged until they worked out how to catch up (though air power being deve…

> those incredibly expensive fighter planes are useless. Aircraft carriers will be replaced I'm not fully convinced. The advantage of drones is that they are relatively cheap. That automatically comes with significant range and speed limitations; after all, as someone else mentioned, we already have long-range semi-autonomous drones called missiles. They aren't cheap. Naval engagements, not to mention aircraft engage…

I agree. Plus, the payload of a drone is way too small to do any proper damage. That's like a 100 mosquitos stinging an elephant.

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#152

Post by UncleEntity »

crumbshot wrote: post #16

Not only should there should be no autonomous drones, the non-autonomous remote controller hardware should be wired up such that if they are shot out of the sky, this kills the human operator and anyone sitting nearby. This would be much fairer than the current system of gamified point-and-click murder.

Who, realistically, would enforce such a system?

I'm pretty sure any artificial rules which make war "fairer" will just be ignored when real bullets start flying since "it's better to be judged by twelve than to be carried by six" is an actual unofficial rule in the military.

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#153

Post by Digit-Al »

I see lots of people offering elaborate solutions to take down a swarm of drones. I may be wildly off the mark here but would it not be feasible to fly over them with a jet fighter and let the supersonic shockwave take out a lot of them?

I am thinking of some other more low tech solutions to whittle them down as well: firing a weighted net; sticky silly string type stuff to tangle and gum up the rotors.

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#154

Post by cercatrova »

dragontamer wrote: post #138
epicureanideal wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. Or will lead to blending in with civilians, more advanced camouflage, or “hugging the enemy” tactics (staying close enough that they risk harming their own people). Or more terrorism rather than open warfare. It might be that with these killer drones, we will look back on WW2 style armies in the field as equivalent to…

> It might be that with these killer drones, we will look back on WW2 style armies in the field as equivalent to 18th century musketeers lining up and firing volleys at each other in bright colored shirts. When the guns were so inaccurate that getting more shots was more important than actually aiming, that's the natural tactic to employ. Lining up was hugely important for other members of the army to know what you'r…

I don't think the parent was saying that firing lines were ineffective - indeed, like you say, if they were actually ineffective, people back then would've stopped using them. Rather, the parent was comparing the changing nature of warfare, such that we see field armies today as being eternal in warfare, but just like firing lines, they too will be replaced by new tactics. It doesn't mean that field armies don't work currently, just that they won't work in the future.

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#155

Post by GuB-42 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #11

This feels like the same thing that happened with tanks. The end of WW1 saw tanks deployed effectively. WW2 was then fought using entirely new tactics and strategies enabled by tanks (not least "blitzkrieg"). Britain and France, notably, hadn't really worked out how to use them effectively and so were left fighting the last war, horribly disadvantaged until they worked out how to catch up (though air power being deve…

> So now we have drones, and all those incredibly expensive fighter planes are useless.

Not useless. The idea seem to be that fighter planes will become something like a command center for the drone swarm. There is value in having a human on site, to take quick decisions for instance, and links to drones can be jammed.

And if you look at the F-35 program, you'll see hints that it is the way we are going. It is a stealth fighter with a heavy emphasis on communication systems. Perfect for managing a fleet of drones. Ok, the execution is far from perfect, but that's another debate.

In the end, it is not entirely unlike the current situation. The difference is that these drones blow themselves up on arrival and are called missiles.

Oh, and swarms of drones won't be cheap, that's the army we are talking about. "Predator" style drones are multi-million dollar machines. A small missile like the Hellfire costs around $100k apiece. Forget your idea of a swarm of hobby quadcopters.

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#156

Post by grey-area »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #11

This feels like the same thing that happened with tanks. The end of WW1 saw tanks deployed effectively. WW2 was then fought using entirely new tactics and strategies enabled by tanks (not least "blitzkrieg"). Britain and France, notably, hadn't really worked out how to use them effectively and so were left fighting the last war, horribly disadvantaged until they worked out how to catch up (though air power being deve…

> And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones.

A war like no other?

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#157

Post by eindiran »

klyrs wrote: post #119
stickfigure wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense. If we're talking about an opponent that can field fighter aircraft and missiles that can destroy anti-drone defenses at 50-100km away, they could just use those missiles instead of drones to destroy the "real" target. Seems to me the likely scenario is some sort of cheap projectile automatic weapon mounted on a vehicle. It doesn't take much to take down a drone and they move incredibly slowly com…

> Sure, 22LR, why not. Because they're subsonic soon after they leave the barrel. A swarm could have fairly precise directional hearing, so dodging such a slow bullet isn't out of the question.

I mean, you can drop in 5.56 or even magnum rimfire rounds like 17HMR (anything that is supersonic past eg 200m) and that issue is mitigated. The swarms could hypothetically still detect muzzle flashes, so that could allow them to respond.

But the real issue is that the threat is a swarm, why are you taking potshots at it. Whatever weapon you use should be able to consume as many of them as possible at once.

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#158

Post by dragontamer »

cercatrova wrote: post #154
dragontamer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might be that with these killer drones, we will look back on WW2 style armies in the field as equivalent to 18th century musketeers lining up and firing volleys at each other in bright colored shirts. When the guns were so inaccurate that getting more shots was more important than actually aiming, that's the natural tactic to employ. Lining up was hugely important for other members of the army to know what you'r…

I don't think the parent was saying that firing lines were ineffective - indeed, like you say, if they were actually ineffective, people back then would've stopped using them. Rather, the parent was comparing the changing nature of warfare, such that we see field armies today as being eternal in warfare, but just like firing lines, they too will be replaced by new tactics. It doesn't mean that field armies don't work…

I guess my overall point is that the specific, nitty-gritty reasons militaries do one thing over the other is more interesting and enlightening when put into context.

If drones are the weapon of the future, then they will have some kind of advantage over their predecessor. A lot of people in this page are talking as if drones will replace fighters (lol no), cruise missiles (lol no), and other weaponry.

Lets really think about things: What does a Predator Drone really do? How is the military using drones TODAY, and how does that change in the future?

We can see that the #1 advantage of a drone is its __loitering__ capabilities. Missiles can't loiter, and sending a pilot in there to loiter is higher-risk than sending in a drone.

Can __loitering__ help in a fight vs a tank? Yes: if the loitering drone is faster than air support (which it will be, because its at the time/place to support the infantry), then it is reasonable to expect infantry to use a drone rather than call on air-support.

--------------

This is how combat changes. One step at a time, as people incrementally think about the distinct advantages a weapon has over its predecessor. Musket-warfare was such because shooting a bullet-per-minute was better than shooting a bullet-per-1.5 minutes.

Rifle warfare (thanks to the Minié ball) allowed accurate rifles to shoot faster than once-per-minute AND do so accurately. And as such, tactics changed. It was no longer a question of "bullet throughput vs bullet accuracy", an invention happened that allowed both simultaneously.

---------

What advantages do drones have in combat? That's really the big question that needs to be discussed. Today's modern theory of combat is "Combined Arms". We want to invent devices where "Device X" requires special weaponry, while "Device Y" requires OPPOSITE weaponry.

RPGs kill tanks, but are terrible vs infantry. Machine guns kill infantry, but are terrible vs tanks. SAM kill airplanes, but are terrible vs tanks and infantry.

Each "leg" of your combined arms forces the opponent to make a difficult choice. What gun do I pack in my bags today? Where do drones fit in this puzzle?

As far as I'm concerned, drones are looking increasingly like "infantry replacement", more than anything. Their ability to "loiter" in an area, and probably have specialized weaponry (through with a small payload) means you can carry a wide variety of weapons on a wide variety of different drones, in support of a greater overall mission. At least, if future drones are as cheap as everyone seems to be making them sound...

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#159

Post by stickfigure »

eindiran wrote: post #157
klyrs wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, 22LR, why not. Because they're subsonic soon after they leave the barrel. A swarm could have fairly precise directional hearing, so dodging such a slow bullet isn't out of the question.

I mean, you can drop in 5.56 or even magnum rimfire rounds like 17HMR (anything that is supersonic past eg 200m) and that issue is mitigated. The swarms could hypothetically still detect muzzle flashes, so that could allow them to respond. But the real issue is that the threat is a swarm, why are you taking potshots at it. Whatever weapon you use should be able to consume as many of them as possible at once.

Birdshot? Plus less risk of collateral damage when the misses fall back to earth.

Re: Lethal Autonomous Weapons Exist; They Must Be Banned

#160

Post by ardit33 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #53
some_random wrote: post #41

There's an interesting similarity between autonomous weapon systems and ransomware discussions. Both have just come to the attention of the mainstream audience (or audiences outside their usual niche) and discussion in those spaces is about where it was 5 years ago. Also I'd really expect HN of all places to understand why banning what is basically computer vision based targeting systems is absurd.

Technologists tend to underappreciated relative utility as a driving popularity metric -- does it accomplish a job I need, better / cheaper / faster? My thought is that ransomware is seeing a resurgence because corporations are increasingly internetworked and hybridized with the global internet, because they have to be. So ransomware has begun to outweigh espionage as a method for extracting money from corporations.…

Um... you are way off the mark here. You just missed the latest war of Azerbaijan vs Armenia, where the azeri forces had these drones, that just hovered in the battle field for hours, and when the Armeni forces turned their radars off their would just home on them and destroy them immediately.

They were acting like moving air-landmines. They key part of this is that they are super cheap to make (cost of a car), and operate, and work autonomously. Thousands of them launched, can wreck havock even on a sophisticated military like the US of Russia.

That's why there is a return of modernized cheaper ww2 type of anti aircraft guns.

China’s New Air Defense System Looks Similar To American ‘Stryker’ SHORAD https://eurasiantimes.com/chinas-new-air-defense-system-look...

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