https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ays-expertThe use of AI in military applications – such as small anti-personnel weapons – is of particular concern, he said. “Those are the ones that are very easily scalable, meaning you could put a million of them in a single truck and you could open the back and off they go and wipe out a whole city,” said Russell.
I agree that this could happen. Imagine an autonomous van that is disguised as a delivery truck. Inside, it has thousands of small, flying drones that are designed to find humans and sting them with a lethal poison, like botulinum or VX (somewhat reminiscent of the "hunter-seekers" from Dune). The truck would be like an aircraft carrier, and the drones would be its fighter planes, and the drones would return to it after successful attacks to recharge their batteries, refill their venom sacs, and then fly out for new sorties. The truck's ability to move around would make it harder for the police to find the source of the attacks (the drones would also attack them when they got near).
Even if the truck were found and destroyed, the loss to the attacker who financed it would be massively dwarfed by the damage he had inflicted on the target population. Worse still, all the necessary technology for making this weapon system will be cheap and commercially available in the future, meaning a small number of terrorists or foreign spies could infiltrate a target nation, and build the system in a garage using common items purchased inside the country. They could then leave the country and remotely activate the weapon system from safety overseas.
Imagine some of the drones being equipped with small incendiary devices that they could drop in wildfire-prone areas upwind of towns and cities (a resurrection of the WWII "Bat Bomb" concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb). An autonomous van could drive all around the American West during the summer, wreaking havoc for weeks until it was finally identified and destroyed. Again, the potential cost asymmetry between the attackers and defenders is enormous. Consider how much human and economic damage the 2018 "Camp Fire" caused, and then think about what would happen if fires were being set by humans who knew which areas were at risk of wildfires (the U.S. government makes this information public) and were upwind of population centers or important pieces of infrastructure.
Thinking about this frightening scenario hits home what it means to be overtaken and overpowered by technology.