Small killer robots could wipe out whole cities of people

Talk about scientific and technological developments in the future
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funkervogt
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Small killer robots could wipe out whole cities of people

Post by funkervogt »

The 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.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ays-expert

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.
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wjfox
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Re: Small killer robots could wipe out whole cities of people

Post by wjfox »

It's eerily plausible.

And we're already seeing the early signs of it:




Now imagine a larger-scale attack.

What can be done to prevent this terrifying scenario?


Slaughterbots

https://www.futuretimeline.net/videos/59.htm


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raklian
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Re: Small killer robots could wipe out whole cities of people

Post by raklian »

wjfox wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 2:45 pm It's eerily plausible.

Now imagine a larger-scale attack.

What can be done to prevent this terrifying scenario?
The only thing I can think of are three things: 1) we create our own countermeasure with drones capable of destroying drones, 2) develop laser defenses all across the city that can zap drones venturing into no-drone zones, and 3) electromagnetic interference technology (or variations of it) in which drones flying into certain areas get quickly disabled.

I'm sure there will be geniuses who will come up with ideas that will make drone swarm assassinations or mass killings very difficult to pull off.

Either way, the world is going to look very dystopian.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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funkervogt
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Re: Small killer robots could wipe out whole cities of people

Post by funkervogt »

raklian wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 4:09 pm
wjfox wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 2:45 pm It's eerily plausible.

Now imagine a larger-scale attack.

What can be done to prevent this terrifying scenario?
The only thing I can think of are three things: 1) we create our own countermeasure with drones capable of destroying drones, 2) develop laser defenses all across the city that can zap drones venturing into no-drone zones, and 3) electromagnetic interference technology (or variations of it) in which drones flying into certain areas get quickly disabled.

I'm sure there will be geniuses who will come up with ideas that will make drone swarm assassinations or mass killings very difficult to pull off.

Either way, the world is going to look very dystopian.
Countermeasures like the ones you list will be fielded, but only after a tragedy awakens the public to the threat. Additionally, even with countermeasures in place, the attacker will have the advantage. Consider that the van weapon system I described could carry enough drones to overwhelm defensive drones in a particular area. In other words, the attacker could gain local superiority thanks to greater concentration of forces. The van could sneak into a densely populated area, and its drones could kill hundreds of people before the defensive systems prevailed.

Also, how could we protect the vast expanses of wilderness from drone arson attack? A monitoring and anti-drone network would be enormously expensive, and could be misused by the government later on for mass surveillance.

Imagine a "Drone Wildfire 9/11" being used by the U.S. government as an excuse to build cameras and drone bases even in the remotest parts of the country to "plug the gaps" in the domestic security surveillance apparatus. What if we also never found the people responsible for controlling the drones? It would spawn conspiracy theories about a false flag operation.
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raklian
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Re: Small killer robots could wipe out whole cities of people

Post by raklian »

funkervogt wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 4:58 pm
raklian wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 4:09 pm
wjfox wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 2:45 pm It's eerily plausible.

Now imagine a larger-scale attack.

What can be done to prevent this terrifying scenario?
The only thing I can think of are three things: 1) we create our own countermeasure with drones capable of destroying drones, 2) develop laser defenses all across the city that can zap drones venturing into no-drone zones, and 3) electromagnetic interference technology (or variations of it) in which drones flying into certain areas get quickly disabled.

I'm sure there will be geniuses who will come up with ideas that will make drone swarm assassinations or mass killings very difficult to pull off.

Either way, the world is going to look very dystopian.
Countermeasures like the ones you list will be fielded, but only after a tragedy awakens the public to the threat. Additionally, even with countermeasures in place, the attacker will have the advantage. Consider that the van weapon system I described could carry enough drones to overwhelm defensive drones in a particular area. In other words, the attacker could gain local superiority thanks to greater concentration of forces. The van could sneak into a densely populated area, and its drones could kill hundreds of people before the defensive systems prevailed.

Also, how could we protect the vast expanses of wilderness from drone arson attack? A monitoring and anti-drone network would be enormously expensive, and could be misused by the government later on for mass surveillance.

Imagine a "Drone Wildfire 9/11" being used by the U.S. government as an excuse to build cameras and drone bases even in the remotest parts of the country to "plug the gaps" in the domestic security surveillance apparatus. What if we also never found the people responsible for controlling the drones? It would spawn conspiracy theories about a false flag operation.
Like I said the world is going to look very dystopian. You will have a portion of human population surviving the drone nightmare thanks to partially successful drone defenses while rest will be eviscerated because they couldn't get those defenses up in time or the killer drones found a way around them. In any case, the landscape is going to be vastly different than we have today. It's like the shock of seeing a simple 1700s Dutch colonial village transform into a skyscraper-filled New York City. That's how much the introduction of drones will vastly change the world as we know it. Add self-learning AI into the mix, you have the makings of a new arms race between killer drones and defensive drones that will seem to spiral out of control in front of our feeble human eyes, and the ferocity of their advancements will shake our civilization's foundation to its core. It's not a stretch to say the survival of the human race will hinge on how much of the killer drones' lethality we counteract.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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funkervogt
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Re: Small killer robots could wipe out whole cities of people

Post by funkervogt »

Like I said the world is going to look very dystopian. You will have a portion of human population surviving the drone nightmare thanks to partially successful drone defenses while rest will be eviscerated because they couldn't get those defenses up in time or the killer drones found a way around them. In any case, the landscape is going to be vastly different than we have today.
This is an interesting scenario to ponder. Imagine the countryside cleared out thanks to the drone threat, and all humans crowded into heavily defended megacities for protection. Doubtless there would be automated mass surveillance, like in the West Bank or large parts of China.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mi ... story.html

Farming in the countryside would only be possible with remote-controlled or autonomous robots. Governments would be engaged in "forever wars" in the unpopulated parts of their territory against endemic terrorist drones. In the cities, people would argue over whether the drone threat was real, or manufactured by the government for its own gain.

A citizen would finally capture one of the terrorist drones intact and post a close-up video of it on the internet, showing that it bore the markings of an American defense company. People would then argue over whether the video itself was real or staged, and whether the drone was actually made by the company (in which case, the false flag theory was right) or was a perfect replica made by an enemy to turn Americans against each other. People would choose to believe different things based on their preexisting political biases, and average Americans would sink ever-deeper into alternate reality bubbles.
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