Robots WILL Kill Us All

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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While this sounds cool as hell, it certainly gives me a bit of the heebie jeebies. The Pentagon has successfully launched a drone swarm from three F-18 hornets...that will seek you out and peel your skin off with their tiny propellers. (I made that last part up, but you know its true.)

"Perdix are not pre-programmed synchronized individuals, they are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature," said William Roper, director of the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office. "Because every Perdix communicates and collaborates with every other Perdix, the swarm has no leader and can gracefully adapt to drones entering or exiting the team."

Of course this comes on the back of No Killer Robots....I am sure these drone swarms will be used for delivering 103 pizzas to the guys on the front lines. Not that we don't think that is an awesome idea.
 
If these are not weaponized, then what advantage is a swarm? Biblical plagues?
 
If these are not weaponized, then what advantage is a swarm? Biblical plagues?
surveillance maybe?

Algorithm is not that hard. Get X, Y, Z of all drones. Figure out center of mass. Planes the furthest from center of mass have to move the most. The ones closet at center of mass can move the least. Thus is drone 1 goes, "I'm too close to drone 2" and drone 2 is further from the center than drone 1, done 2 will be forced to move. You work the solution outward from closest of center of mass to outward. Each move is coordinated on each "clock tick". The drones have a flight path which will cause the center of mass to have a movement vector which will be executed by the drone at the closest center of mass.

Simple O ( n ) algorithm for each drone.
 
The US Airforce already has full size F-16 drones and I have never heard of any complaints about them and they could actually kill us.
 
Of course drones will become the norm in the battlefield of the future. I just worry about the AI.
 
It's happening! Just like on advanced warfare:

codawgameplay.JPG
 
These were ejected from the countermeasure dispenser. An obvious application would be a smart missile countermeasure 'cloud'
 
what advantage does a swarm have over, say a single drone? Certainly not stealth

No but it could "mark" multiple individual targets, each moving in a unique direction.

Imagine a terrorist bombing raid or fire fight...they scatter like cock roaches.
 
No but it could "mark" multiple individual targets, each moving in a unique direction.

Imagine a terrorist bombing raid or fire fight...they scatter like cock roaches.
This can be done with a single camera and the discrimination system laying down tracks on each person. Much cheaper and already in the field. Maybe if you wanted the drone to follow them into a structure or something...sure.
 
Im sure Parsey McParseface will find a suitable use for them...then there will come soft rains.
 
I'm re-programming a T-800 right now. You want a robot arms race? I'll give you a robot arms race!
 
... and there is no chance Russians can hack our killer robuts
 
Could see these as mentioned above. Essentially "marking" enemy targets.

Assuming soldiers would have a "holo lens" esque type glasses. A single droid that
has a camera could track and send triangulation information to have a soldier see
an augmented reality object as if it were in real space.
 
Funny, tonight's episode of "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." is about... you guessed it: KILLER ROBOTS or at least one Android that became sentient due to some dastardly ancient evil book as usual. They're dropping all kinds of movie references and it's hilarious: at one point the now self-aware Android calls into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base and one of the characters comments "Ok, this right here, this is exactly how "The Lawnmower Man" ends..." so if you've seen that movie from years ago you'll be in on the joke. :D
 
what advantage does a swarm have over, say a single drone? Certainly not stealth
Can overwhelm an opposition in terms of unparalleled co-ordination and numbers, which also is great from a defense perspective (consider the co-ordinated swarm boats various militaries are developing).
The navy in the past proved swarm drones have more success in overcoming a ship's defenses than a single missile costing the same as the swarm.

Cheers
 
As a retired R/C jet hobbyist, personally I suspect that quadcopters will be met with stiff regulations eventually. It's just a matter of time until someone bad gets motivated with one. It's too easy to use from a distance.
 
It says distributed; are these things networked? Sounds like more wasted money against anything but 3rd world terrorists who don't know how to jam. More free hardware for the russians to take with their anti drone weapons they sell to their client states.
 
Tiny propellers are so last century. While the concept of swarms is new to the military, the originators, Wasp industries is introducing their own 'swarm' drone product: The newest drones will be harnessing thousands of unemployed bumble bees with New Jersey green head flies working in tandem to chew your skin off. All in the name of 'going green', ending our reliance on electrically and petroleum product powered drones. When they're not busy attacking our enemies, those military bees will be sent off to pollinate fields of fruit, which the government can charge farmers a pollination fee per plant. A 100% Eco friendly biological solution to the military's need for cheap, efficient, renewable killing machines, and gets those lazy drone bees through training so they become workers.

Wait seriously though, could you genetically modify/breed aggressive bees to attack some weird random spectrum of light that you could then broadcast onto targets? Then some sort of off-switch, audio perhaps?
 
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