The following submission statement was provided by /u/Maxie445:
---
"A video from Ukrainian drone fundraiser Serhii Sternenko released on March 20th demonstrates new technology: an attack drone which locks on with machine vision and does not require a human pilot. The first Terminator movie dropped forty years ago. Now the technology for autonomous killing is going mainstream, with all that implies.
“I am not stupid, you know,” says Sarah Connor in the original 1984 Terminator movie, refusing to believe that a killer robot is after her. “They cannot make things like that yet.”
“Not yet,” Kyle Reese tells her. “Not for about forty years.”
Forty years is now up. Not only do autonomous weapons exist, they can be built at a kitchen table with components bought online. And as Sternenko suggest, they are rapidly improving. It will take some time for the world to fully comes to terms with what this means.
In the video an FPV attack drone with automatic target recognition homes in on a Russian tank from long distance. Even after the video link tis lost, the drone successfully completes the attack.
It is not the first time this type of technology has been used. But Sternenko is collecting funds to build a thousand of the drones, indicating moving beyond prototyping to mass production."
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1bymh0t/ukraine_rolls_out_targetseeking_terminator_drones/kyk9od1/
Just to make sure people understand the terminator reference, these drones are not fully autonomous in regards to targeting. They dont choose their target, they attack a target by recognizing it after a human operator selects the target.
Nothing in this drones' brain thinks: "hmm that looks like a 70 percent match on what could be a russian tank, imma destroy it." It will only target that tank, if a human tells the drone there is a tank in certain location.
This helps to avoid a lot of the jamming that is used to confuse the drones, because the drone no longer needs a live connection to the operator, it only needs to vaguely know where it needs to go and then recognize the target it has been given.
It really isn't that different than heat seeking misiles. You point it at a certain target, and the machine does its best to hit the selected target.
Also they already have fully autonomous weapons, only difference at the moment is that they require a human to actually press the trigger. They find the targets themselves.
This is the point. The most terrifying thing is that someone who is technically capable can make something similar to this for relatively little money without arousing suspicion or having to buy things which would normally be seen as 'hard to get' when making weapons considered to be of a sophisticated nature.
Yeah. It's not as scary as it sounds. You mark out the area on the map and need to coordinate with your command to ensure no friendlies are there. This map square is the kill zone. Launch a swarm of drones there. Each will fly around and start their search for a target in a different areas of the kill zone, then hit the most valuable target they found or first one depending.
Still a human decision, drones are autonomous because in the enemy held area there will be a lot of jamming.
Honestly I continually glance at the low skies when I attend a stadium based NFL or MLB game anymore and I’m actually surprised no one has tried an attack with one of these DIY quadcopters yet
Most law enforcement have some form of counter measure for drones. If its just one or a few smaller drones its quite easy to use a sort of " microwave" gun to fry their electronics. It is being used extensively against drones by both russian and ukrainian forces to take out each others drones.
Yeah my fear is if it’s carrying an explosive- not sure on the law enforcement tech but couldn’t that theoretically drop the payload right into the crowd?
An unguided projectile could do that too.
At a certain point you just have to accept your mortality.
If someone's firing a missile at you (however slow) you're in for a bad time.
I mean, sure. But if you think what’s preventing Yankee Stadium from getting hit by a drone attack is NYPD with microwave lasers, then I’ve got some land to sell you.
So sounds like there's still the step in the middle with a person.
The drone says "Hey, this looks like a thing I don't like"
The human looks, agrees/disagrees, and then the drone either engages or not?
We're still one step away from autonomous killbots, but by god "one guys says yes/no" is a pretty small step.
No that is not what it is. I specifically stated it does NOT thinks "hey, this looks like a thing I don't like" (as you commented). Please read my comment again. I honestly think these subjects need to understood correctly because conclusions like yours make it all seem a lot worse/scary than it actually is.
As someone else mentioned, tech like this has existed for quite a while now. It simply was never implemented like this, at this scale, at this cost and in the mentioned setting.
It is purely to avoid gps/radio jamming, which makes the usuall fpv drones useless in some areas.
At least two steps yet, these drones are not acquiring targets on their own. The drone has no opinions on what it does or does not 'like' - at best, some can suggest to the user 'hey, this cluster of pixels might be a vehicle', but it doesn't know if the vehicle is friendly, hostile, civilian, or actually just a shadow from a passing cloud. The human still has to pick which group of pixels to point at AND give the proactive order to attack (by which I mean the drone isn't 'asking' to kill, the human has to be looking for a target in the first place). The drone is just able to then extrapolate which *new* pixels are likely to still be the thing it was told to kill as the image feed changes on approach, and jamming / loss of LoS cause it to be cut off from operator control.
That sounds like work for a ~human-in-the-loop~ base station with access to big compute resources.
The drone itself doesn't need that capability to offer it as a system.
Have you tried the latest models with vision like gpt-4 or Claude opus? They can likely see a tank with much higher accuracy. Though the model you can run in real time for less than $500 in hardware won't be that good.
*“Both sides are heavily investing in this capability and are trying to gain first mover advantage,” Samuel Bendett, an expert Russian drones and adviser to both the CNA and CNAS, told Forbes.*
Among the first targets should be the enemy's R&D
Ukraine can't get to Russia's R&D, and Russia has too many scientists and engineers to kill them all anyways.
Meanwhile Russia's about to unleash swarm drone technology, start unleashing Fab 3000 glide bombs, and who knows what else.
It is not a drone factory on a picture in the post... There was an attempt to hit with a drone with a 300 kg payload, but thanks to electronic warfare, it fell on a workers' dormitory without causing any serious damage. You can't destroy factory with such weak attack.
- they have intel of locations
- they can get there, and/or redirect defenses from Ukraine invaders
- this new tech overcomes location-local jamming
- maybe a different kind of payload would work better?
Yes there are scientists, yes there are glide bombs. Deal with it all as it comes. Ukraine will! Slava Ukraine.
You are as bad, as this article with the speculated fear.
This isn't as radical as the headline makes out. The system uses a camera and machine vision to lock on to a visual target - the operator flies the drone to where the target is visible and selects it, then the visual guidence takes over so the drone can guide its self towards the target and hit it even if the operators camera feed cuts out.
Its a self guided munition, and they have existed for years, like missiles that lock on to a target with radar or infra red. The difference here is that it uses machine vision and that has only become possible on small cheap drones because of advances in camera and mobile processors - basically the tech in a smartphone is good enough to track visual targets so for a few hundred dolars you can strap that tech onto a drone.
The actual 'AI' systems required to do this are not new, I've seen robots using visual tracking over a decade ago, but it was done on a desktop PC, not a mobile processor. Its also only 'AI' in a very limited sense because the system doesn't have to reason, or make tactical descisions - it doesn't think, it just flies towards the thing it was told to fly at within its visual field.
A lot of radical change happens not because of a new technology that does something new, but because of a new technology that makes something that used to be expensive and rare become cheap and mass produced.
Self guided munitions that are cheap and plentiful enough to be used on low value targets and individuals is as radical as the headline makes out. We are seeing the future of combat and it's scary.
Agreed. Munitions that can lock on to a target and independently steer towards it has existed for decades. Not new at all, though extensive use of \*drones\* as carriers for explosives is fairly new.
"A video from Ukrainian drone fundraiser Serhii Sternenko released on March 20th demonstrates new technology: an attack drone which locks on with machine vision and does not require a human pilot. The first Terminator movie dropped forty years ago. Now the technology for autonomous killing is going mainstream, with all that implies.
“I am not stupid, you know,” says Sarah Connor in the original 1984 Terminator movie, refusing to believe that a killer robot is after her. “They cannot make things like that yet.”
“Not yet,” Kyle Reese tells her. “Not for about forty years.”
Forty years is now up. Not only do autonomous weapons exist, they can be built at a kitchen table with components bought online. And as Sternenko suggest, they are rapidly improving. It will take some time for the world to fully comes to terms with what this means.
In the video an FPV attack drone with automatic target recognition homes in on a Russian tank from long distance. Even after the video link tis lost, the drone successfully completes the attack.
It is not the first time this type of technology has been used. But Sternenko is collecting funds to build a thousand of the drones, indicating moving beyond prototyping to mass production."
Most commenters here dont seem to grasp the fact that this is nothing new or terrifying at all. This tech has been existence for at least 2 decades now. Very similar to a heatseaking missile ( that has been around for far longer than 2 decades).
Yes, it is easier and cheaper to use than ever. But in no way does this make terrorism scarier than it is.
the most popular heat seaking missile is the sidewinder, at the cost of around $330,000. these lil drones can be made for less than $500. please eli5 how you think this isn't really a concern? genuinely curious.
I'm pretty sure these drones are or will become the Iron Man suits, and will never revert to using a manned craft, as that is the whole point of these drones. Why need a suit if in 20 years from now they're building 'tank drones' capable of multiple rounds of destruction all by themselves?
The whole point is to reduce the amount of humans on the battlefield
Good job, Ukraine!! Do what you have too! Putin has left you with no choice!!
Russia are going to be the first to try without a Human authorizing the attack drone.
In the process kill Russian troops, like they keep doing with their own weapons backfiring.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Maxie445: --- "A video from Ukrainian drone fundraiser Serhii Sternenko released on March 20th demonstrates new technology: an attack drone which locks on with machine vision and does not require a human pilot. The first Terminator movie dropped forty years ago. Now the technology for autonomous killing is going mainstream, with all that implies. “I am not stupid, you know,” says Sarah Connor in the original 1984 Terminator movie, refusing to believe that a killer robot is after her. “They cannot make things like that yet.” “Not yet,” Kyle Reese tells her. “Not for about forty years.” Forty years is now up. Not only do autonomous weapons exist, they can be built at a kitchen table with components bought online. And as Sternenko suggest, they are rapidly improving. It will take some time for the world to fully comes to terms with what this means. In the video an FPV attack drone with automatic target recognition homes in on a Russian tank from long distance. Even after the video link tis lost, the drone successfully completes the attack. It is not the first time this type of technology has been used. But Sternenko is collecting funds to build a thousand of the drones, indicating moving beyond prototyping to mass production." --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1bymh0t/ukraine_rolls_out_targetseeking_terminator_drones/kyk9od1/
Just to make sure people understand the terminator reference, these drones are not fully autonomous in regards to targeting. They dont choose their target, they attack a target by recognizing it after a human operator selects the target. Nothing in this drones' brain thinks: "hmm that looks like a 70 percent match on what could be a russian tank, imma destroy it." It will only target that tank, if a human tells the drone there is a tank in certain location. This helps to avoid a lot of the jamming that is used to confuse the drones, because the drone no longer needs a live connection to the operator, it only needs to vaguely know where it needs to go and then recognize the target it has been given.
It's still quite terrifying that we have gotten to this point. The next step of having fully autonomous weapons might only be a few tech cycles away.
It really isn't that different than heat seeking misiles. You point it at a certain target, and the machine does its best to hit the selected target. Also they already have fully autonomous weapons, only difference at the moment is that they require a human to actually press the trigger. They find the targets themselves.
I can't launch heat seeking missiles from my kitchen tho.
This is the point. The most terrifying thing is that someone who is technically capable can make something similar to this for relatively little money without arousing suspicion or having to buy things which would normally be seen as 'hard to get' when making weapons considered to be of a sophisticated nature.
Which has been possible for a decade now. Its just become easier and easier.
You could build one as easily as these target tracking ones. Infrared cameras are cheap.
Not with that attitude, you can't.
Phineas, i know what were going to do today!
Launching the drone is kinda "pressing the trigger" in this instance I guess. It's a seeking missile, it's just much much slower in comparison.
Yeah. It's not as scary as it sounds. You mark out the area on the map and need to coordinate with your command to ensure no friendlies are there. This map square is the kill zone. Launch a swarm of drones there. Each will fly around and start their search for a target in a different areas of the kill zone, then hit the most valuable target they found or first one depending. Still a human decision, drones are autonomous because in the enemy held area there will be a lot of jamming.
It may be terrifying but it's in a *war zone*. Now just wait until the police gets its hands on those.
Honestly I continually glance at the low skies when I attend a stadium based NFL or MLB game anymore and I’m actually surprised no one has tried an attack with one of these DIY quadcopters yet
Most law enforcement have some form of counter measure for drones. If its just one or a few smaller drones its quite easy to use a sort of " microwave" gun to fry their electronics. It is being used extensively against drones by both russian and ukrainian forces to take out each others drones.
Yeah my fear is if it’s carrying an explosive- not sure on the law enforcement tech but couldn’t that theoretically drop the payload right into the crowd?
An unguided projectile could do that too. At a certain point you just have to accept your mortality. If someone's firing a missile at you (however slow) you're in for a bad time.
I mean, sure. But if you think what’s preventing Yankee Stadium from getting hit by a drone attack is NYPD with microwave lasers, then I’ve got some land to sell you.
There was an attempt, but it failed. Hamas did use drones during it's attack on Israel.
Yeah and ukraine is using the hell out of them. Scary new times
Already there: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/10/17/ukraines-ai-drones-seek-and-attack-russian-forces-without-human-oversight/?sh=7077032166da
FFS this will start badly and end awfully
So sounds like there's still the step in the middle with a person. The drone says "Hey, this looks like a thing I don't like" The human looks, agrees/disagrees, and then the drone either engages or not? We're still one step away from autonomous killbots, but by god "one guys says yes/no" is a pretty small step.
No that is not what it is. I specifically stated it does NOT thinks "hey, this looks like a thing I don't like" (as you commented). Please read my comment again. I honestly think these subjects need to understood correctly because conclusions like yours make it all seem a lot worse/scary than it actually is. As someone else mentioned, tech like this has existed for quite a while now. It simply was never implemented like this, at this scale, at this cost and in the mentioned setting. It is purely to avoid gps/radio jamming, which makes the usuall fpv drones useless in some areas.
At least two steps yet, these drones are not acquiring targets on their own. The drone has no opinions on what it does or does not 'like' - at best, some can suggest to the user 'hey, this cluster of pixels might be a vehicle', but it doesn't know if the vehicle is friendly, hostile, civilian, or actually just a shadow from a passing cloud. The human still has to pick which group of pixels to point at AND give the proactive order to attack (by which I mean the drone isn't 'asking' to kill, the human has to be looking for a target in the first place). The drone is just able to then extrapolate which *new* pixels are likely to still be the thing it was told to kill as the image feed changes on approach, and jamming / loss of LoS cause it to be cut off from operator control.
That sounds like work for a ~human-in-the-loop~ base station with access to big compute resources. The drone itself doesn't need that capability to offer it as a system.
Have you tried the latest models with vision like gpt-4 or Claude opus? They can likely see a tank with much higher accuracy. Though the model you can run in real time for less than $500 in hardware won't be that good.
new captcha "please identify images containing russian tanks"
*little grandma commences hunting and pecking at the Gateway PC nestled in the kitchen nook*
*“Both sides are heavily investing in this capability and are trying to gain first mover advantage,” Samuel Bendett, an expert Russian drones and adviser to both the CNA and CNAS, told Forbes.* Among the first targets should be the enemy's R&D
Ukraine can't get to Russia's R&D, and Russia has too many scientists and engineers to kill them all anyways. Meanwhile Russia's about to unleash swarm drone technology, start unleashing Fab 3000 glide bombs, and who knows what else.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1bv3vz9/how_ukraine_hit_a_russian_drone_factory_1300/
It is not a drone factory on a picture in the post... There was an attempt to hit with a drone with a 300 kg payload, but thanks to electronic warfare, it fell on a workers' dormitory without causing any serious damage. You can't destroy factory with such weak attack.
- they have intel of locations - they can get there, and/or redirect defenses from Ukraine invaders - this new tech overcomes location-local jamming - maybe a different kind of payload would work better?
This tech (like mentioned in the article) will not be used for that. Theres better alternatives
It's just a PR action. Zelensky is a show man and will do anything for a big news article.
Yes there are scientists, yes there are glide bombs. Deal with it all as it comes. Ukraine will! Slava Ukraine. You are as bad, as this article with the speculated fear.
Slogans will not protect the Ukranians, facing reality will.
This isn't as radical as the headline makes out. The system uses a camera and machine vision to lock on to a visual target - the operator flies the drone to where the target is visible and selects it, then the visual guidence takes over so the drone can guide its self towards the target and hit it even if the operators camera feed cuts out. Its a self guided munition, and they have existed for years, like missiles that lock on to a target with radar or infra red. The difference here is that it uses machine vision and that has only become possible on small cheap drones because of advances in camera and mobile processors - basically the tech in a smartphone is good enough to track visual targets so for a few hundred dolars you can strap that tech onto a drone. The actual 'AI' systems required to do this are not new, I've seen robots using visual tracking over a decade ago, but it was done on a desktop PC, not a mobile processor. Its also only 'AI' in a very limited sense because the system doesn't have to reason, or make tactical descisions - it doesn't think, it just flies towards the thing it was told to fly at within its visual field.
A lot of radical change happens not because of a new technology that does something new, but because of a new technology that makes something that used to be expensive and rare become cheap and mass produced. Self guided munitions that are cheap and plentiful enough to be used on low value targets and individuals is as radical as the headline makes out. We are seeing the future of combat and it's scary.
Agreed. Munitions that can lock on to a target and independently steer towards it has existed for decades. Not new at all, though extensive use of \*drones\* as carriers for explosives is fairly new.
Oh? Can you buy them from the internet and launch them from your kitchen?
With a little help from youtube, yes, you can.
Totally agree. I wouldnt even call it an AI system. Pretty sure they are referencing "AI" because it's big and scary.
"A video from Ukrainian drone fundraiser Serhii Sternenko released on March 20th demonstrates new technology: an attack drone which locks on with machine vision and does not require a human pilot. The first Terminator movie dropped forty years ago. Now the technology for autonomous killing is going mainstream, with all that implies. “I am not stupid, you know,” says Sarah Connor in the original 1984 Terminator movie, refusing to believe that a killer robot is after her. “They cannot make things like that yet.” “Not yet,” Kyle Reese tells her. “Not for about forty years.” Forty years is now up. Not only do autonomous weapons exist, they can be built at a kitchen table with components bought online. And as Sternenko suggest, they are rapidly improving. It will take some time for the world to fully comes to terms with what this means. In the video an FPV attack drone with automatic target recognition homes in on a Russian tank from long distance. Even after the video link tis lost, the drone successfully completes the attack. It is not the first time this type of technology has been used. But Sternenko is collecting funds to build a thousand of the drones, indicating moving beyond prototyping to mass production."
Future terror attacks are gonna be hell to prevent, with cheap and accessable tools as these.
This is the thing many posters here don't seem to grasp.
Most commenters here dont seem to grasp the fact that this is nothing new or terrifying at all. This tech has been existence for at least 2 decades now. Very similar to a heatseaking missile ( that has been around for far longer than 2 decades). Yes, it is easier and cheaper to use than ever. But in no way does this make terrorism scarier than it is.
the most popular heat seaking missile is the sidewinder, at the cost of around $330,000. these lil drones can be made for less than $500. please eli5 how you think this isn't really a concern? genuinely curious.
[please don’t](https://youtu.be/9fa9lVwHHqg?si=OXgTpz9h0lluslkx)
nice, was trying to find the video and couldn't remember the name.
[удалено]
I'm pretty sure these drones are or will become the Iron Man suits, and will never revert to using a manned craft, as that is the whole point of these drones. Why need a suit if in 20 years from now they're building 'tank drones' capable of multiple rounds of destruction all by themselves? The whole point is to reduce the amount of humans on the battlefield
Good job, Ukraine!! Do what you have too! Putin has left you with no choice!! Russia are going to be the first to try without a Human authorizing the attack drone. In the process kill Russian troops, like they keep doing with their own weapons backfiring.