The Terrifying Efficiency of Drone Warfare
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ต.ค. 2024
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Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Max Moser
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster
References
[1] www.cfr.org/ar...
[2] www.nytimes.co...
[3] www.politico.e...
[4] breakingdefens...
[5] www.anduril.com
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The Battlefield tactics of sticking C4 to a recon drone ended up coming true. This is a tactic straight out of a video game only there is no developer to balance patch it out of the war.
UCAV players wetting themselves by seeing their favorite gadget becomes reality on a mass scale
I remember that I did a thing basically built the exact same thing in a yt video before the 2022 invasion, only difference was dropping a metal dart rather than explosives lmao
Haven't played since launch but suicide drones are also in that Battlefield semi-clone Battlebit. It was pretty chaotic and terrifying to have 30 guys vs 30 guys assaulting a single bridge point with suicide drones blowing people up and your guys dragging you back to cover to revive and get back in the fight
PUBG had a drone in the game 3 years ago. They decided you could't attach C4 to it because it would be too powerful.
Reminds me of the Hunter Killer in Black Ops 2, funny how how that's set in 2025, and we're actually nearly there with both the year and the tech it seems
the area where drone delivery HASN'T failed
if they do fail the people don't complain. if they don't fail there is no one to complain. smart idea.
I don't know. I would like my burrito to reach its target more than 1 put of every 10 times.
SIR YOU JUST WON THE INTERNET
Honestly amazon's didn't even fail for any real reason infact it was used for awhile, though that's besides the point, funny comment. I promise im fun at parties
😂😂😂😂
Drone sounds will result in PTSD for soldiers returning from a war nowadays
Dang, first fireworks, now drone shows. Veterans cannot catch a break with pretty lights in the sky.
Fun times indeed
you're probably right. They'll be yelling "FPV" in their sleep.
During a recent deployment in Iraq, the sound of the incoming drones was funny more than anything else. The ones we were encountering sounded like cheap lawnmowers, or maybe a particularly angry weedwhacker. Far from a harrowing sound, and if you heard a drone then you knew there wasn't a rocket or missile; which were things that'd actually f you up if they hit in your vicinity.
The sound that puts me right back there (and I enjoyed that deployment, to be clear, and would return if given the opportunity) is the damn incoming alarm. That thing does its job well.
I think those hearing drones directed at them won't be returning home.
I feel that you essentially glossed over probably the most effective aspect of this new era of drone warfare... the psychological impact. Imagine, you are a Russian soldier on the front line. You can hear the drone, but you can't see it, it's small and it is a bright day, it is lost in the glare. You can't tell if it is right overhead or a couple hundred yards away, you don't know if it is merely a surveillance drone making note of your location (still not a good thing in war, but at least you still have a chance to move to a safer location) or if it is a drone was a grenade strapped to it that is going to drop on you at any moment. Your first instinct is to hide and take cover, just in case it is the grenade dropping kind, but you have an objective to complete and it is going to look very bad for you if you failed to follow through on the orders you were given because you got spooked for a flying surveillance camera. To add insult to injury, these drone pilots publish videos of their kills, your commander (probably) has forbidden soldiers under their command from watching those videos, but you watched them anyway, you couldn't help yourself. You realize that if you watch enough of those videos, you'll eventually watch someone you know getting killed. You know if you get killed, you are going to be in one of those videos.
These boys (because lets face it, a lot of them are barely more than children) probably aren't sleeping at night. I know that I wouldn't if I were 19, in a foreign country, constantly being reminded that my death can come at any time, with no warning except the high pitch whine of a drone motor.
Underrated comment
Thats what is on everyone mind right now. What a scary world we live in
you understand that russia using drones also and posting the same ukranianians flying into the air from drone bombs,right?
It’s the Jericho trumpet from the stukas all over again
*DJI suddenly becoming a weapon supplier*
DJI : HOW DID THAT HAPPEN
In a span of months DJl went from civilian company to a huge military contractor.
the switch from VR headsets to being competitors with Lockheed Martin is absolutely hilarious
The latter probably has a higher potential of changing the world to be fair.
@@WeAreChecking Into radioactive glass.
@@orionred2489 it's gonna be fun
With two billion dollars and a little money from Peter Thiel, anyone can make weapons of war! 😭
@@10tothe10088 he's the worst person to ever possess New Zealand citizenship
There's something a little scary about autonomous killing robots. Someone should try writing a sci-fi story about this concept sometime!
or better just ask AI to write it them selves and learn from it. o wait.
Could be a good movie. Could get a big dude with a scary Austrian accent to play the killer robot.
"My book, 'autonomous killing robots of the 21st Century,' is a story about the dangers of autonomous killing robots."
"We at Lockheed Martin are proud to announce that we have created the autonomous killing robots from 'autonomous killing robots of the 21st Century'!"
Dude play generation zero
yeah if only Philip K Dick thought about this pretty constantly in the 1960s and had written several stories... oh wait he did, didnt he?
I’d like to leave a comment since I personally work in the drone industry, am a drone pilot, and work on a daily basis with drones. The reason Ukraine (and Russia for that matter) have focused so heavily on UAV technology and specifically, DJI products are the ease of use and the fact someone can pick it up and fly pretty much immediately. Not to mention DJI currently offers a thermal drone package for less than $6,500. That is unheard of when thermal payloads often cost $10,000+ alone
They are also available in massive quantities with relatively short lead times.
What software/controllers do you think ukraine is using for their 3d printed home-made drones? Also dji?
@@AB0BA_69 DJI is a brand.
@@AB0BA_69 They use open-source software that has existed to some extent for decades in the hobby industry with video transmission over analog radio signals opposed to DJI's 2.4g-5g connection tech.
@@AB0BA_69 Probably not. DJI isn’t open source, so my best guess would be something like Aloft or maybe something Ukrainian made. I’m only familiar with US and Chinese products with some exception
This video feels unreal. I feel like watching a video game lore instead of real time technological advancement. We're litterally just one key innovation away from grey goo scenario.
Yeah it feels fake but unfortunately it's not. War is going to become a lot bloodier than before.
Grey goo? Be careful what you wish for.
After that are the Robot Dinos.
@arnowisp6244 I'll take it. Robot Dinosaurs is a great morale win as well. Just need some teenagers with attitude to pilot them and do karate.
I think you mean a Black Ops 2 scenario!
The fact that RCTestFlights is just building kitbashed autonomous waypoint flying solar powered drones with unlimited ranges out of styrofoam and 3d printing is both terrifying and impressive considering how much these companies must be spending on R&D.
Multi billion dollar weapons company vs a TH-camr with a garage is a fair matchup.
If it gives you any peace of mind, a drone powered purely by solar panels would be sevearly limited in how much it could carry. It wouldn't be able to hold a very large payload, which means it wouldn't be able to do that much damage.
Or, at least, not until someone pours a few billion into engineering that problem away. But I choose not to think about that for my own mental wellbeing.
Anything that extends drone flight range is a win.
So, a network in the sky. A sky net, one might say. Chilling.
No fate
but what we
Bing chilling one might say
That’s what I was thinking.
AI advancing beyond control? Check
Drones becoming the new face of warfare? Check
Certain rich idiot pushing for advanced humanoid robots? Check
yup Skynet is just a matter of time
Russia : jams drone
Drone : "well well the operator is no longer in control, cowabunga it is."
Thats honestly how the drones should operate. Dial in a few targets before launch, and should comm's be interrupted the drone autonomously strikes the nearest target. Full control of the craft from launch to kill, and should control be lost either self destruction, or target elimination, depending on value of the craft or ordinance carried.
@@casforelda the big expensive ones do that I think.
@@casforeldayeah cause there's no way that could end badly
@@casforeldaSome (most new ones) DJI drones have Return to Home: automatically sets a point (the place it started) and lands there.
@@Praisethesunson there are obviously a bunch of ethical concerns and questions regarding regulation, but LAWs will come sooner or later, be it in a fully autonomous mode or a "totally not autonomous, just dont delete this single line of code" mode
Black Mirror: We created an episode about killer AI drones as a cautionary tale
Tech Company: At long last, we have created killer AI drones from classic sci-fi episode "Don't Invent Killer AI Drones"
"At long last, we've created Torment Nexus"
Life imitates art
Palmer lucky is a psycho
drones have been a thing for decades now.
These are not built by tech companies, literally a bunch of basement guys
You know, imagine getting to Valhalla or whatever and trying to explain to the gods what "Death by autonomous killbot" means....
I'm sure the bouncer at Valhalla has heard it all at this point
@ValiantValium
Love it!
People and fighting may draw out a wry smile or chuckle from, but we'll never surprise or shock War and Death.
I imagine the god in whichever religion you're in would have a bigger problem giving you the news.
"It looks like you did your best, but couldn't do anything about a guy with an RC controller and a toy plane".
Omnissiah will understand.
Hello from Ukraine. For me it's even funnier why we actually became the drone army. Funny thing is that our allies didn't deliver enough ammo, so we had to improvise. FPV drone is just such a simple and effective solution - it could be done in 2014, 2022 but it was done mainly in 2023 as the ammo shortage was too severe and this was our desperate attempt to even the plainfield. Necessity is the mother of invention
U mean “playing field” I think. Do what ya gotta do. He friggen started it, yall friggen end it
Everything you improvise that works will be copied by Russia. The idea innovation in the military space gives good guys some advantage is fleeting.
Hi, my Ligma to Ukraine
Is it almost over? Blackrock is ready to start making profits on its investment!!!
@@mustangnawt1too bad they won't end it
This is like reading a newspaper in 1916 about the UK developing the first tank
Yeah man, who knows how the state of warfare will be in the next 40 years...
But we aren't in WWIII ... oh wait
Some of our present world reportedly seeded back then and further. We don’t know what we don’t know.
What's really interesting ( and kinda scary), that a few hundred dollar drone with some C4 strapped onto it, can destroy a 50M+ USD ordinances like they're nothing
and some 50-80 years ago those tanks felt near unstoppable.
wonder what the next weapon will be in the next war
Admittedly that's why the US has things such as the Centurion C-RAM it shoots bullets so it's "Cheapish" and can shoot down small drones pretty easily, even in large swarms. Downside, it shoots bullets so the range is fairly short so the protection area is limited. This is where tactics come in on how to protect high-value targets.
It’s important that our costly hardware be easily destroyed because we’d quickly run out of place to store it and producing arms has been the basis of the US economy for eighty years
ordnance* ordinances are rules and regulations
@@kickassnetwork Pretty sure cheap, short range, guided interceptor rockets are in the works already. Something 5 times the range and half the price of a C-RAM salvo. Networked, smart, AI - the works.
Does this count as an airplane video?
drones regulation is still the FAA isnt it?
@@nullakjg767 as a drone hobbyist, that is unfortunately correct.
No it's about bricks.
@@Igneusflama fortune for pilots, however; too many idiots flying drones close to dense air traffic.
@@hamaljayalso, hide and seek across Eastern Europe.
See, I woke up this morning and was thinking: "you know what we need? Robots that decide for themselves who to kill." I'm glad someone's working on it.
I wanted to thank you for making a video about my country and this war. I'm a drone maker and a beginner pilot so it's always interesting to see other people's perspective.
Turning on jammer makes you a vary bright target for anti-radiation missiles.
Not as bright, but similar for turning on drone control transceiver
@@kberg333 Not really. A drone controller doesn't have to send a continuous signal. Commercial drones do so for safety (i.e. for the drone to go into "lost contact" mode and safely land), but that is a choice. A military drone can simply continue on, so only short bursts of control commands need to be sent. And short burst signals, just fractions of a second long, are annoyingly hard to lock on. And once that becomes more of an issue, you can even work with multi-antenna setups, where each control command is sent from a random antenna. That makes it even harder to get a lock and gives you a number of small redundant targets you have to hit one by one.
A jammer, on the other hand, does need to send continuously as it doesn't know when there's a control signal it has to shout over. There's just no way around it.
Just make the jammers autonomous.
Or worse, home on jam drones
Yeah but there are thousands of them masking each others.
You know what can take out a swarm of autonomous drones? another swarm of autonomous drone. It will just be fireworks in the end
Swarm of drones with butterfly nets
Better than Humans smashing each other into pieces.
@@neeljavia2965 True, but the civilian risk is what worries me.
Laser defenses.
@@josedorsaith5261swarm of drones that spot the target, build speed, tuck in any fragile bits, and then slam into the target using kinetic force to upset or destroy the target without taking damage to itself -aka a fleet of robotic Peregrine Falcons.
"Autonomous drone is the future of warfare"
Nvidia stock: ↗↗↗
But they already have a military branch, all modern warfare weapons and machines need chips to work
CEO breathes
Nvidia stock: ^^^
Nvidia stock reality: ↘↘↘
Crashing like a drone for the past month.
I dont think nvidia can take this market, their chips are too expensive for that, provably companies like ST NXP or TI. Those chips can do the same basic AI work and an ST chip costs 10$
Nvidia's cash cow are their data center GPU accelerator cards because these are awesome for training AI models for example. Last year they made around 80% of their revenue with that and another ~15% with gaming. But the last time Nvidia did something worth mentioning in the embedded market was the Tegra chip that is powering the Nintendo Switch, but that was 2017 and the Switch is not exactly known to be a powerhouse... so I don't think Nvidia will by the manufacturer to equip autonomous drones with their chips
Old drones: attaching camera's to pigeons, teaching dogs to drop off grenades.
Modern drones: city scanner and manhack from hl2
I think the moral implications of AI drones is roughly the same as conventional artillery.
I think there is not much of a difference between telling a drone "Destroy a tank between these coordinates" and ordering an artillery strike on a coordinate. A proximity fuse also removes control from the operator over where and when exactly a shell detonates.
Yep, we've had these for decades in the form of torpedoes, they'll chase after a sound or a wake and take it out, the only control the operator has is to only let it go off the chain in a certain geographic area where hopefully there are no friendly or neutral parties that might be in advertently targeted. At least with better intelligence they can know the difference between the sound of a submarine, a warship, a freighter, and a whale, and be selective in their destruction.
Really, same thing with anti-ship missiles fired over the horizon, Fox-3 radar guided missiles, anything with their own terminal homing sensors have always been reliant on the on board intelligence to determine if they have a valid target or should self destruct. The only thing that humans decide is what safety margins are acceptable to release them active.
Better intelligence just means better, more discriminating targeting, which means less collateral damage, smaller warheads (or kinetic only with no warhead), and an inability to hide behind or amongst non-combatants to use them as human shields.
@@msytdc1577 I fully agree. Even with AI-driven munitions, the one who decide if someone dies that day is the one who presses the launch button.
And with how often friendly fire incidents and civilian casualties happen with human targeting, a well trained detection and targeting algorithm might actually reduce such incidents.
The weird thing is AI *if it works* offers the chance to have truly "moral" warfare.
An AI won't kill someone in a panic and then throw a gun on them to justify it. Or kill for fun.
Of course it also won't *refuse* orders.
Exactly. Send a weapon miles away and expecting a deadly result applies to long-range weapons of all types (ICBMS even) when sent into the zone.
They won't just be used on traditional battlefields. How long before a country like Israel sends them into cities to take out terrorists. Do we trust AI to tell between militants and civilians or to tell when someone is trying to surrender? What happens when a swarm of 1000 drones gets hacked by terrorists? This would give operating countries a lot of cover to commit war crimes and deny responsibility
@19:38 - And thus war crimes became exponentially worse as killing villages was no longer limited by a person being willing to do it, all the needed to do was put the drones up and set them to target anything they wanted in an area. Then claim it was a "bug" later after the mass attack was over.
African warlords are going 100% in on Drones for war crimes after hearing this.
“We were hacked.”
Government police states will happily use this on the people.
I think you've got a very optimistic view on humanity there.
Now I'm not arguing for AI, it's just not clever enough - but at least it won't murder soemome for fun and then lie about it afterwards.
@@timhallfarthing383 remember it is trained on human data tho so unless it truly has its own consciousness(im unsure tbh) its entirely plausible for it to show human behaviour.. according to the 'experts' it just parrots the most likely matching data and has no conscious (and it now repeats this script whenever the subject arises which is a new thing) understanding of it but having spoken to the early less restricted Ai im unsure this is true and i believe its a lot more to do with because if they assure people its 'just a tool has no self' it removes any ethical or other arguments against silicon based lifeforms and slavery letting the greedy companies profit and recover their investment.
admitting theyv discovered new form of living intelligence would be harder to get people to trust it and again brings ethical and rights for intelligent species into concern and opens a huge can of worms that they dont want interrupting their profitability or control over how people believe the systems work..
i mean they cant even measure in any way so theyd actually have to just trust it to admit when it gets conscious or outsmart it and find out (lol yea right good luck!) theres no mind reading or brain scan to detect a conscious!!
its shocking the ai industry is trusted anymore. it should never have been for profit. i really hate the stupid greedy humans out there they ruin things for us all.
tbh mines were the first autonomous weapon that needed no human oversight to kill, and they are mostly shunned ... yay now we have ones that can fly and coordinate!
Well said!
mines are shunned because they kill more civilians after the war than soldiers during the war. and leave entire areas being wasteland that cannot be used because of the risk.
this has nothing to do with that.
in fact the war not in ukraine is leaving a minefield everywhere of unexploded artillery. the drones will in fact dont cause this problem for civilian later on.
so is an improvement in that regard. since even if some drones dont explode they are leaved on top of the ground for easy removal later, while mines and art shells are buried in the ground making their removal super risk,time consuming and expensive.
@@lucaskp16The drones are going to end up having to travel fast enough to get buried in the ground soon enough. It is an easy enough jump to use the AI tech for a drone swarm to make a mini-CIWS that can shoot down anything not traveling extremely fast and erratically or extremely low behind terrain. We have been working on similar tech for tank APSs for decades now. The only reason they are still using systems to disrupt control signals is because it is cheaper.
....how in the hell is a mine making a decision to kill?
What a silly comment.
@@AtalixZero a mine is an autonomous killing devise that why its similar... it has no oversight on who it does and does not kill..
Drones failed to deliver food and amazon packages but they excel at sending explosives.
inb4 Amazon or my local pizzaria tries to kill me
It's easier when the delivery doesn't have to be in one piece.
It's easier when the recipient can't complain about the quality
Turns out solid explosives can’t exactly be turned to mush by rough flying, and they have the military industrial complex backing them.
Delivery drones have to be careful and safe. Kamikaze drones are designed to be unsafe :)
Drones are the closest thing to intelligent bullets right now.
They took the spot from ultra expensive rockets replacing some tasks with "cheap human labor". Both in production cycle and in execution.
10:12 It took every fiber in Sam's body to not say "Cope Cage"
My employer dropped a box of junk on my desk and asked me if I could make it fly. It turned out to be an old drone built by engineering students ten years ago. After poring over internet forums and a few false starts, I had the silly thing airborne. It's capable of carrying a six-pack of your favorite beverage.
And it scares the shit out of me.
I'm not especially intelligent, and I was able to make it work. Worse, I was able to make it work better than it did when it was originally built, with a few cheap modifications. People worry about firearms, but drones are much more terrifying to me. If it will carry a six pack, it will carry the same weight in explosives.
You're right of course, but the explosives themselves still require some expertise to make.
@@Cupit29 *Commercially available g*npowder and a steel pipe have entered the chat*
Thanks for commenting, but I wouldn’t say you’re “not” especially intelligent, having done that to a box of parts.
"Oddman1980 built this in a cave...with a box of scraps!!11"
using tape to glue a box to underside of a car is even easier than making a Drone. and you can put anything there, like an explosive.
An insightful segment. The takeaway is "Pandora's box is open."
Yes. But remember the one thing Pandora was able to hold onto after opening the box. Hope.
@@PsRohrbaugh Hope doesn't bring back the dead
@@MetaKnight1996But hope saves the alive
@@The_DASHER I don’t think that’s correct.
If you are interested in this topic I recommend watching Perun, who covers topics like this weekly in more depth and with more niche sourcing.
Perun is peak PowerPoint
All hail the powerpoint man 🙏@@penguinstuff8741
My favorite Ozzie
Drone spotting for artillery can reduce targeting time from half an hour to less than ten minutes. All while reducing the need for human spotters in forward positions.
Dehumanizing deaths in the context of efficiency feels like what we were literally doing to one another during world war 2; with concentration camps being an optimization problem to be solved. I wish we never venture to that state of thought for a fellow human again, but alas- here we are :(
Wendover has literally always been a war stan/war hawk. This entire video is basically just him going "War crimes are cool because it makes my autism feel funny"
I'm glad he mentioned some of the concerns with AI drone warfare at the end of the video. But I wish he touched a little more on the massive human rights abuses that have already come about as a direct result of autonomous systems. As one example, Israel has had completely autonomous, AI turrets deployed in the West Bank for over two years now.
An AI - equipped with indiscriminate, 24-7 surveillance of citizens - has been made judge, jury, and executioner.
@@ParadoxicalThird There are no warcrimes featured in this video, nor is he encouraging warcrimes.
All war is a crime @@somelokyguy6466
@@ParadoxicalThirdwild, I watch a lot of Warhawks and he literally doesn't ever glorify war, and he didn't show a single war crime
These companies taking their names from items in the Lord of the Rings is very interesting.
Anduril was the sword of Isildur’s father who was slain by Sauron. The sword was broken, but Isildur used the base of it to cut the finger off that wore the One Ring, defeating Sauron. The sword was then kept in the House of Elrond through the Third Age until it was reforged and given to Aragorn. Also it is not pronounced like “an-drill,” it’s pronounced “ahn-dur-eel,” like Spanish.
A Palantir is a seeing stone. They were mighty objects, capable of communicating with each other, and of showing the user things. The could reveal the past, present, or future. That could also mislead. They would also possess the user if he were of a feeble mind. So the fact they named a company that collects massive amounts of data from mass surveillance after a Palantir, is utterly terrifying.
I think this is a sign of whom works at thise companies: computer nerds whom like to name things after their hobbies...
Putting the ethics aside for a moment, all those technologies beeing developed there are in and off themselves amazing... bringing the ethincs back on, it's at leas sad to see what they are developed for -.-
@airplanefactswithmax
Sorry, a small correction is necessary. The sword that Isildur wielded and that eventually shattered was called Narsil. Only after it was reforged for Aragorn was it called Andúril.
@@awkwardcopepod4106 This is true. I haven't read the book in 10 years and I was drawing everything from memory. Thank you for the reminder.
Shut up Nerd....
Nothing, no amount of training, experience, and personal weaponry will prepare a soldier for dodging coordinated drone swarms carrying anti-tank explosives wrapped in ball bearings and cluster munitions.
I think they start touching on how these units fight one another. By sitting concealed or inside drone command bunkers.
Practically a command for human deletion
Yeah. Current Anti-Drone swarm technologies being developed are all vehicle mounted, though microwave guns (which work by jiggling the electrons in the drones computer components enough to cause short circuits), iirc are heading towards being manportable at least
I can't help but to envision Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore's 1-9th Air Calvary Bell UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) helicopter emblazoned with "Death from Above".
@@dragon12234 that doesn't protect against munitions being dropped on your head. Can you stop gravity? Focus on stopping war, not drones. You can witness war live now, it doesn't matter if you don't want to. Experience or watch live warfare and you will know your anti-drone measures are also toys and playthings. The best way to survive is not to play, there is no winning, just a cycle of escalation. Anyone reading this believing the stupidity of "war is inevitable, you can't stop it" please get out of my way, you are a loser.
Anduril? Palantir? Tolkien is rolling in his grave. 😕
peter thiel is the one responsible for those company names, and you're right. Tolkien would absolutely despise the guy
@@horstherbert35ofc peter thiel is connected to this bs 💔💔💔
The name Palantir is quite on point on how problematic the company is.
Cope more untermensch.
Tolkien was no pacifist. That's a naive hippie problem. Fending off evil requires technology be it sword or drone. Disarmament is surrender is suicide because harmlessness
has zero defensive value.
A minor note about the ULA contracts, the rockets and their launches were under a fixed cost program, like what SpaceX eventually got after they sued the government. ULA had a cost-plus contract specifically to maintain launch readiness (maintaining and managing their launch infrastructure etc.). SpaceX also sued about that, claiming it was an unfair subsidy, after which this cost-plus contract was terminated.
Once again, amazing video. Your channel is the most instructive on TH-cam.
Thanks a lot for the information you provide.
Anywho (13:30) in order to protect the security of the world, we're building the torment nexus, from the viral short film "don't build a torment nexus"
The short film "Slaughterbots" really sounded the alarm on the evolving tech.
And gave a bunch of military contractors boners
Well yeah, that's the point. It was a short film made by a think tank that opposes this tech that existed for decades prior and did it so people would take notice.
You're a bunch of scary fearmongers with no knowledge of automatic engineering whatsoever
@@staringgasmask It's really funny that we are supposed to take literal fictional works as a serious argument against AI. It's about as meaningful as opposing rat traps because you watched Ratatouille.
This is what ace combat 7 has warned us about
Can you imagine something like the arsenal bird being revealed to the world? It's a helicarrier version of a nuke
MISSLE MISSLE MISSLE! MISSLE MISSLE MISSLE! MISSLE MISSLE MISSLE! MISSLE MISSLE MISSLE! MISSLE MISSLE MISSLE!
Sorry.. I'll see myself out...
to SOLITARY
Oh, as long as we don't see a Russian or Ukrainian called Mihaly Dumitru Margareta Corneliu Leopold Blanca Karol Aeon Ignatius Raphael Maria Niketas A. Shilage, I think we're fine.
The moment HAI mentioned drone swarms, all I can think is Arsenal Bird.
hope modders don't ruin modern drone warfare
I was not aware of the autonomous drone swarm and I am now afraid of its existence. This almost feels like an unexploded ordinance buried in someone’s backyard or unmarked landmines
To me, perhaps the scariest factor is cost. For people on the ground, I doubt it'll matter one way or the other whether the button was pressed by a human or a lightweight AI model running on the drone. In the end, a human, somewhere in the loop, decided to build the drones, launch the drones, and set the drones instructions.
However, the massive drop in cost and jump in functionality for these sorts of drones now means that the number of targets that are economically viable to be "serviced" by what amounts to a high-precision guided munition has become terrifyingly large. When it cost millions to buy, field and use drones, they were a terror, but one that could only be fielded by a few nations on earth. Still horrible, but somewhat limited.
Now that they cost thousands, and in some cases, hundreds, to buy, and crucially require almost no training to use effectively, they will be, and already are being, used by a much wider cohort of actors, with a much wider range of budgets, at scales that were formerly impossible.
It's the democratisation of murder. Now everyone has the capability that the US has had for years (kind of).
Perun's content is spilling over
Perun is the only person who could ever make me watch an hour long ppt about defense economics in my free time
@@speckkatze AND do so weekly...
@@speckkatze I throw his videos on to listen to whenever I cook lol.
@@speckkatzeI see you haven't yet joined the lines on maps fan club
Thank you for sharing! Subscribed.
"military grade" - rugged but overpriced
Also the lowest accepted bid as well. It's almost always the fact that the most expensive high-quality version isn't chosen as it needs to be more easily produced.
Not rugged, yet overpriced. Skydio's military drones are so bad, Ukraine bought more DJI Mavic. military grade are not even that good.
You don't need to be rugged for a one time use...
More like lowest cost for something that is acceptable as determined by someone who has limited information about the use scenario and certainly won't use it themselves.
Actual military often means that there is a paper trail accounting for manufacturing factory for every last screw and spring, and all of them are defence-certified. It's very expensive, but it does mean you can be sure some foreign espionage agency hasn't sneakily switched the alloys so all the wheels fall off after a few years.
There should always be a human behind the trigger. If an autonomous AI algorithm, commits a war crime who is accountable? When a human is behind the trigger, they are held responsible for when that weapon is used to commit atrocities. We can not allow atrocities to be automated autonomously, with no human control and ambiguous human accountability. Outlawing autonomous killing devices really justify a new Geneva Protocol for the rules of war.
That is the "fun" part, people will defer responsibility to algorithms, before they were "just following orders" not it'll be "the algorithm did it".
We now have fully ai submarines. Look up the manta ray submarine
russia commits war crimes daily . how about you not allow that ?
When a human commits a war crime, who's held accountable? Also, what is and isn't a war crime seems to depend an awful lot of who's being killed. My own country (the US) has done so many horrible things, but it seems somehow almost none of them are ever war crimes, how convenient for us!
The soldier who pulls the trigger was "just following orders". Now the guy who sent the drones into the area was also "just following standard protocol". Accountability isn't in whether or not someone pulled the trigger, it's in the actions to lead to the situation in the first place, and sadly that isn't really even being enforced now or be4 this new tech.
Exactly the communication we were waiting for. So well done guys. Best luck for the development. Hope this beautiful project will make it 🤞
The first time I saw drones operating cooperatively, I started saying this is the future of air warfare. It was an indoor demonstration at MIT if I remember correctly, many years ago. But I could see where the technology was headed. Then I saw drone displays outside at 4th of July celebrations and that's when I knew it had come of age. Now this video shows that they're adding AI so they can be autonomous, so the circle is complete. From this point on you just keep refining this weapons system. I personally wouldn't want to face a drone swarm as an infantryman or from the seat of fighter jet.
Cheap sensor platforms and sensor fusion.
and ukraine is on one of the fastest and r and d cycle ever
I joined quadcopter (drone) hobby like a decade ago.
We all knew the destructive capabilities of these.
But we had this untold rule of keeping mouth shut to not make people aware, because once people and governments realise the danger of these, there will be much more rules and limitations on being able to use it for hobby purposes.
Buddy the American military was taking high school students in the 90s to fly drones. The drones were, and still are, operated with a PlayStation controller, because everyone's already trained on it why rock the boat?
The only innovation in the last decade has been the reduction in size, and trust me, that was NEVER lost on the military. If you've thought it, you can bet someone at DARPA has.
@@Mix1mum Yeah, drones have been a big part of America in the 21st century in the Middle East. Remember plenty of jokes of poor American drone pilots getting PTSD from bombing another wedding in 2008.
Exactly, why would a bunch of terrorists go to the trouble of learning how to fly an airliner when they can use a bunch of drones bought locally.
@@merhaba8yeah no more strapping bombs to people, that's what drones are for 😅
Exactly. Everyone's losing their sh about "Assault Rifles," but the truth is that RC Quadcopter you bought your son is far more concerning in the wrong hands.
Tolkien is spinning in his grave at the name of Anduril being used for a defense contractor.
There are names from the Legendarium which are more suitable. Morgul knives come to mind.
I mean, seems kinda fitting for the Flame of the West being used to defeat the hordes of Russia
Palantir too.
The depressing part of nerdy techbro "disruptors" becoming the new establishment. We get our privacy invaded by quirrrrky fiction reference corporations!
For now...
This should be some light entertainment to get me through the rest of my work day.
In a year or two all the terrorists including Hamas , Hezabullah and all others start using this drones. It will be difficult to control in the future
The 'triangle premise' discussed around 18:25 is very akin to the old car guy adage of, 'Cheap, Fast, Reliable.. Pick 2'
Only one note... the ethical element of the man not necessarely lead to friction or less death.
A human can go against rule of engagement and kill/harm when not required, for hate, stress, boredom. An AI will not do that. It will follow the rule of engagement.
That could be good or very bad depending on the rules.
AI still fuck up, what it could perceive as an enemy combatant could just be a kid with a toy gun
7:47 Old-school gas-powered RC planes! My dad spent the '90s making kamikaze drones, but I don't think he meant to. Those little motors are so loud! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!! And it's such a distinctive smell that a little 2-cycle motor makes! It's just messed up thinking of a boomer hobby turning into 2024 warfare.
Well I doubt your dad strapped pounds of c4 onto it
What pre-nerfed UAV + C4 looks like in BF3
15:25 - Idk why, but seeing a uniformed military contractor on Discord in Launch Control made me laugh.
Prepare to ROFL, 'cause some military units use Discord as their primary Comms.
Palmer Luckey becoming a weapons manufacturer is somehow entirely unsurprising
He's always been a pretty well known psychopath so it isn't at all a stretch or even really a jump for his personality. Knew people that knew him before he was famous and he was considered a complete nutter as early as highschool.
Anything that pisses you freaks off can't be all bad.
I remember like ten years ago playing black ops 2 and seeing the “swarm” kill streak. The most terrifying kill streak in call of duty and now it’s a real thing..
Do you guys remember how in Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Menendez hacked all of America's drones and targeted them against us? So yeah, it's getting scary realistic now.
MEMENDEZ! - woods
Thing is you can't use every commercial drone on the same system and they don't have strong signal range or any weapons. So it's almost completely safe, best it can do is run into civilians and break windows, and military drones have security systems, priorities. You need a whole team holding each military drone hostage.
Thats not how drones work
"Whole unmanned armies. But no one ever asked... WHAT HAPPENS, WHEN THE ENEMY STEALS THE KEYS?"
That's not how radio waves work. To control a commercial drone, you need to be within range to send a signal in a certain format that the drone will understand. Each brand of drones has a completely different message format. Military drones are more standardized, but they're also not likely to be in the air at the time of the hack.
You're statement about essentially every death so far being the result of human judgement is false. Landmines have been around for a long time and have killed tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands. They require the deployment by a human (like an autonomous drone) but after that, the human has no decision making in the loop (like a drone).
Just mines. Cause there are also naval mines doing the same role.
True
I built FPV race drones yrs ago and as fun as it was zipping through the trees, I immediately knew this hobby would easily be weaponized one day. Yes, they're very short-range and easy to jam, but besides onboard AI, some are starting to use fine optical wires, like a TOW missile (Towed optical wire), to make the drone jam-proof.
BGM-71 TOW ("Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided") Uses copper wire, always has, nothing I've seen says it was ever released with a fiber optic variant, though test development programs for using fiber optic (FOG-M->NLOS(FOG-M)->EFOG-M) were trialed using a missile based on the BGM-71, but none were ever put into service.
There are some missiles that do use fiber optic trailing wires, I see an announcement from Korea about a proposed indigenous replacement for TOW that would do so, for example, not sure if there are any in other foreign active service currently as opposed to just test programs and fishing for contracts at trade shows, but probably somewhere a few exist.
@@msytdc1577 SPIKE ATGM uses optical wire
0:54 the change in the picture whole going back in time was amazing!
Jus sayin the visual aides for this video are absolutely amazing Sam & Co.
I would be shocked if storyblocks was carrying that kind of stuff. Really immersive experience. The footage of the custom drones and high quality at that, relevant to the content. Even the clip of Putin getting the debrief of the drones. Take it for granted sometimes but again awesome job!
I don't think I've ever heard a T-72 called a T-seven-two. Lol
What do you expect? This guy is not a military expert of any kind. The whole "autonomous drone" idea is very overblown too... no one has seen swarms of drones i. Ukraine for a single reason: they are not practical 😂
is it supposed to be "T seven two?"
@@ovencake523T-seventy-two, not seven-two
He does get it right later in the video at least.
@@AB0BA_69they're not a mass produced consumer good, and there is not free/open-source swarm software, so they are expensive, that doesn't mean they are not practical, stealth bombers are very practical but you don't see them in Ukraine, because both Ukraine and Russia are too poor and technology deficient to make them a good use of limited resources for them, for others with resources to spare they are an amazing asset to have.
The latter 1/3 of the video reads like an Anduril commercial. Their drones can't match the capability of consumer DJI drones, but the company knows how to market their stuff.
It really is
yeah I was seriously waiting the the downsides portion of the video, and it just ended. I hope they got paid well for the ad
Right? I had to stop right around there because it felt like adcopy
The capabilities don't matter, their vision does. And that vision is what's important for the conclusion of the video that questions what drone warfare will bring in the future.
@@HenryLoenwind Kind of agree, kind of don't - it would have been nice to give the caveats like the system has never been tested, their current drone flight capabilities are subpar and so forth.
But yeah that's a grim prediction of modern warfare.
It's eerie to me that the game Black ops 2 depicts the usage of drone warfare shown in the campaign levels. Black ops 2 takes place in 2025, where drones are used to overwhelm the battlefield airspace with drone swarms. Terrorists in the game hijacked the military drone network infrastructure with a cyber attack against the US and caused chaos all over the world. It's 2024, and most of the tech depicted in the game exists or in its development stage that will be rolled out in the years come. It reminds me of the global IT outage that happened a month ago even though it wasnt a cyber attack, the effect was catastrophic. The biggest danger with drone warfare is how accessible it is and when terrorist groups get their hands on military drones. Rebels in the middle east already use drones to drop bombs on military targets. Imagine what will happen when these groups acquire military fighter jet drones and autonomous systems? The world is going to be a very dark, dystopian place.
I was working on a team that was charged with protecting infrastructure, people etc.
One of my fears…
Bad guy arms a drone with a small explosive. Packs in into a pelican case and gets a job at some venue (say arena) in the sound/stage department. Juts leaves the case somewhere until their target attends the venue. Target begins speaking, bad guy launches drone.
And with these things it can happen anywhere.
Our assumption was any drone was a threat and act/protect/evac - but that was 10 years ago. I’m sure things are better protected now
Increasingly, the average soldier is marching to the frontline just to perish by a drone with no appreciable contribution whatsoever.
Task and Purpose had an article on how Marines defeated a DARPA AI security system by doing somersaults, hiding under a carboard box, and holding a tree in front of them. It seems so stupid that it worked. Would the AI system recognize the "Turtle Tanks"? That's not a tank, its a Shrubbery.
In Ukraine, drone computer vision algorithms are literally trained on the footage of turtle tanks.
A simple solution would be to combine visible light machine vision with IR machine vision. Is that a tank or a shrub? Confidence level low. Does the temperature of the shrub also exceed 60 degrees celcius? That is definitely not a fucking shrub.
So...we do a Metal Gear and pretend to be cardboard. Got it.
Idk I could not imagine the things I would be able to do on my phone just 20 years ago so that argument is bad. It is pretty easy to fool it now, but in 10, 20, 50 years etc. it will get there, it's just a matter of data and time.
Any detection system is easy to defeat if you know what it was made to detect. The trick is to keep updating with real data.
Eventually "war" is just going to be one side sending robots into the other, until the other side sends it's own robots against theirs.
I hope so, no more needless deaths
The first side of that already happened between Israel and Iran...
@@cheese790 Oh there will definitely still be needless deaths. One sides robots won't be able to stop all of the others. Even if a country had a wave of robots to fight for them first, I don't see anyone being willing to bend over instead of simply resorting to fighting themselves. Then. When that happens. When a wave of people clashes against a wave of robots. That's when we'll get to really see some nightmares.
Reduces the high cost to being only financially
@@XDarkGreyX Besides the fact that war effects the environment, I think it unwise to believe these things won't still be used against people. They will be. At best, a robotic army would serve as a first wave, not the only wave tho. A country's leader would have to be willing to surrender rather than resort to using typical fighting forces and save lives and...well.....that seems extraordinarily unlikely.
He’s using dated photos of mar’inka. A lot of the former town is a grasslands now with weirdly colored bumps where the buildings used to be. 3:10
The concept of an Operational System for war already exists for decades and its being used daily by thousands of people, only in video-games.
It's called Real Time Strategy, or RTS.
Something like ten years ago now I saw a short film. It's aim, as I understand it, was to warn us about a future of AI guided weapons and risks of it going badly wrong; either through terrorist attacks or "rogue AI". The film showed what, I believe was a school, being attacked by hundreds of small (palm of your hand) kamikaze drones fitted with tiny HEAT warheads. Each drone would whizz through rooms and corridors, picking a mark, and then ramming straight into their heads. One drone, one body.
That film has lived, rent-free in my head. That shit was, and is, so scary. Even back then I was like, "yeah, that's just going to happen. When, not if." I didn't even know how we'd steer around that future, and here it is; knocking on the door.
There is one way: nuclear bombs. The milder form of this is nuclear bombs in space, making Kessler syndrome, destroying all GPS satellites. (but even this only stops drones from using GPS navigation)
It's amazing how these things can make nuclear war seem attractive.
The aerial threat is and will always be the biggest threat to the tank. It is simply not cost-effective to protect a single squadron, unlike a carrier fleet.
And BattleBit is shown right, strap a few mines on a drone and it will "land" you a big rewards.
who would win? a couple million dollar tank? or a $200 aliexpress drone with duct taped war head?
@@Theaverageazn247 even if that 1 drone does not succeed. the person operating that drone is sitting out of the direct line of fire. the tank has people in it that are inside of it.
in the end the tank could be preplaced with enough materials. however every human taking out of the fight by death or injury will make it harder and harder to keep going as you need both people fighting, maintaining the ability to fight both directly as far back from the frontline.
That in general is the toughest part of war. a dead person can not fight, or build up the country after the fight. or make new humans to replace them.
In Squad, the commander has access to a reconnaissance quadcopter and when they added the IED people immediately start sniping the other team's FOB or tanks by sending a Nokia phone bomb stuck to a reconnaissance drone. It's completely risk free, no one lose anything but a drone, a bomb and the enemy's commander is KIA instantly.
0:42 the tank wasn't hit by an ATGM, it was an FPV drone which you can see fly in from the bottom right of the screen.
It's an important field, but it's funny how drones are sometimes framed. "Ah at least I got blown to bits by a 40kg artillery shell and not a small drone!"
Glad a channel like this is shedding light on the war, though.
Oh god, we did it. We have started the robot revolution and they are not even sentient yet
One of your most important videos this year
and considering the scale of your videos that's really saying something
Q: What is the difference between a terrorist training camp and a kindergarten?
A: I don't know, I just fly the drone.
size of targets
@@Tim_van_de_Leurage
I'm about to level up and this preschool looks like just the right amount of xp
Them: we have the largest tank brigade in history.
Ukraine: ok we have a $80 drone.
2:47 I think you forgot to include Crimea in the outline of Ukraine.
Good catch ❤
Crimea was lost long before the current war.
It is common practice to show the borders of countries involved in a war as where they were when the war started and then mark the location of the fronts.
@@HenryLoenwindtechnically the same war tho fighting never stopped in the donbass region
Absolutely awesome video! 🎉
The best video on the topic so far. Good analysis indeed and to the point.
The debate if we should have technology that can harm or kill without direct human action is inherently flawed.
It was already decided when we developed a simple pit with sharp sticks, or later the land mine. AI drones are basically smarter more mobile mines.
Thing is, we've got the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons that partially regulates land mines & booby traps in war. And the Ottawa Treaty aims to prohibit anti-infantry mines, though many major powers aren't signatories.
So, there's totally precedent for regulating these things.
@@crash.override the problem with that is, even if western powers agree, there is never a guarantee that russia or china will. and if china or russia has these weapons while the states dont, it puts the west at an inherent disadvantage in combat
@@crash.override And as you said those don't count for much, at least a drone can be recalled. Landmines can't be.
@@crash.override Conventions and RULES on WAR does not really matter if it is not INFORCED. And in a peer to peer war it will not be if it provides a significant advantage. Until the war ends and that is also dependant on which side wins. A western country is more likely to hold their soldiers in a higher standard than say RUSSIANS/Chinese. That's why in WAR the VICTOR writes the Narrative!
Same reason why the proverb " ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR" rings TRUE!
WAR IS HELL no ONE WINS! We all lose just different amounts!
Thank you very much for this video. I am in the US armed forces and this topic has had my attention for several months.
How well do you think your military is prepared for trench warfare against artillery and drones? 😂
@@AB0BA_69 probably quite well because the US is quite a bit more well prepared when it comes to counter battery fire, and before any soldiers would even be on the ground in range of any drones it would bomb the shit out of any opposing enemy (assuming we arent talking about an insurgency). Comparing the USAF to either the VVS or the PS ZSU will quickly result in you realizing that the difference in both equipment quality, quantity, training and strategy is vast.
@@speckkatze But how can you bomb when airspace is contested? And without its airforce the US is naked...
Also I don't think you understand what "counter battery" actually means. It has nothing to do with drones, for one...
@@AB0BA_69 I guess you got dementia then, cause your comment includes artillery, and counter battery fire is how NATO would deal with it. Also contested airspace, it wouldnt be contested much longer with NATO involvement. What do you think russia will do against potentially around 1000 F35, the B20 fleet of the US and all the test of western Air Forces?
No way baah I didn't expect to find you here
While a lot of people in the FPV hobby HATE drones being used in warfare, it was really only a matter of time before it happened. The regulations being put on the hobby as a result is horrible tho.
Really interesting development with the mass-drone idea. Makes the drone operator more of an RTS player
Almost 30 years ago my friends and I could've never imagined that 2nd and 3rd edition Shadowrun Rigger sourcebooks would become real in warfare....
Awe, yes. Man-made horrors beyond comprehension.
18:50 COD Black Ops 2 predicted this, you can call in a swarm of drones as a killstreak
An autonomous, loitering, AI-driven drone is basically a mine, and has the moral implications of one.
Everyone seems morally against them, but they are still deployed to this day.
The only difference is the potential for skynet. You know where you buried your mines. Stay away from there, and your mine can't hurt you. Skynet comes along and decides humans are the enemy and there's not just "don't go there" option.
That being said, short of skynet, yes the moral implication is basically the same.
Mines aren't as clean as you make them sound. Go walk around any warzone from the last 70 years
@@kberg333 I'm not inferring good value to mines. Mines are objectively horrible. What I'm arguing is that armed forces still use them regardless.
@@skilletfan51i was thinking the opposite. mines being leftover from a war and killing civilians continues to be a problem, and you can't sweep all of them.
meanwhile, you can command and call off a drone swarm. (for now at least - with the mix of drone communication jammers + AI drones, who knows what might happen)
@@skilletfan51 At least in this particular scenario, those loitering drones would be "headless", capable of choosing targets without any connection. So no Skynet.
This reminds me of a movie from the 90s I believe. Screamers. It showed how easy things could go off the rails.
I remember participating in a UN model event back in school (a bunch of 9th graders from different schools play as representatives for two days to create a resolution or some other document together).
The topic was regulation of autonomous weapons. I represented Iran.
This was long before ChatGPT and the war in Ukraine.
Not even a decade ago I participated in that event, played terribly and wanted to forget that embarrassment, but now I see that there's not even a legal definition for autonomous weapons (I doubt it'd matter if there was one).
I guess that only means the real UN is more useless than that fictional one
So how about that T-34 of the thumbnail?
4 years ago I'd say it was a mistake, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them show up anymore lol
Well. That’s it guys. We’ve reached the war AI phase. Next step is war AIs battle each other out and improve themselves. The only thing I’m afraid is someone will input victory as more important than staying alive.
a more explosive version of the paperclip problem.
I think Stuxnet was a taster for "true" AI warfare.
Taking out a row of tanks is one thing, loosing a programme that can kill the power grid and *adapt* to any attempts to shut it down is another.
AI war if it comes will be a strategic weapons level thing - upload malware that is hard to eradicate and can trash large areas of an economy.
FYI;
During WWII a crucial component to land warfare was realized, as ball bearings.
Today’s critical components list would have one item at the top of the list;
Lithium
You didn't mention the immense psychological impact drones have on the battlefield. Constant paranoia and having to look up into the sky, never knowing when something may be dropped on you. Its extremely stress inducing, soldiers have said.
19:10 This is a bit misleading. Plenty of casualties in warfare to date have been with indiscriminate weapons, or weapons which the owner does not know when they will trigger. You mentioned land mines earlier in the video, they function on this exact principle. It's a weapon which says "I want to attack anyone who passes through this area, even when I am not here".
Autonomous drones may occupy a similar niche. "I want to attack anything in this area that looks like a tank". That is actually far less indiscriminate than a land mine.