Ukraine said it took a Russian position using just drones and ground robots.
Zelenskyy said it was a wartime first, and no Ukrainian infantry was involved.
He said robots have done over 22,000 missions in three months, keeping many soldiers from harm.
The age of drone on drone violence will make war more palatable to citizens.
I really, honestly hope you are right. Sadly, I think you are wrong. I’ve recently been exposed to the concepts of “human safari” and “drone siege” and they aren’t pretty. “Drone on drone” might be just the preamble of these.
No preamble, unfortunately. The Russians are doing these “human safaris”, which are, of course, clear as day war crimes, to train their drone pilots.
Also to terrorize and wear out the civilian population of course, which is the Russian way of war.
AI drones are coming along, but these won’t only be used on other drones or robots, that much we can know already.
Indeed, I meant that in a hypothetical “drone vs drone” war, after the drones win the attacks on civilians and sieges will most likely come after.
The thing I fear is that this just becomes a ridiculously futile war of resource attrition. It all comes down to who has more metals and chips and armaments to keep throwing at the other’s pools of the same until one gives up. What a waste…
…But then again, writing this, I realize that’s almost already how they treat human soldiers so…what will change, I wonder?
Exactly. We’re already there with which side has more human resources. Meanwhile asymmetric warfare is an escalation of technology and the resources to produce them. Sure, you can tip the balance of power on the battlefield with very clever use of resources, but it’s ultimately a contest of who is willing to dump the most into the conflict.
It could also be argued that technological warfare in a global economy makes resource blockades even more important. Nobody is 100% reliant on their homeland resources anymore. To effectively siege your opponent, you have to cut off everything that can fuel their ability to make war. That can be a huge perimeter in some cases.
What will change?
It’s easier to convince young people to hump soldiers into their partners than it is to create more rare earth elements.
Possible. It does seem like drones fighting drones should mean less human casualties, which has both a humanitarian side and an escalation risk side.
Then again a lot of people have thought their weapons would make war less deadly, and been very wrong, including the case of WWI-era artillery.
They “accidentally” told the drones/robots to attack the schools and hospitals. “We would never do that on purpose”
“Well why were the terrorists using school children as human shields!”
I doubt it will ever stop
This, but also if you aren’t putting your soldiers at risk then war becomes more palatable (and thus more likely). For example, I doubt Trump would have attacked Iran if he had been quoted 1000+ American causalties in the first week.
No one will give a shit about robots dying. The drones will either be attempting to war crime civillians or intercept said war crime robots.
And drone intercept rates arent even close to that not being scary.
People will give a shit about the robots dying once their side starts running low.
When shit turns into Helm’s Deep, when the robots are taking out the last of your defenses, you’ll give a shit lol.
Think of the drones and robots less like soldiers/planes and more like a thousand points that make up a force field. As that field decays, so does your protection beneath it.
I think you’re overestimating the defensive capabilities we have. Drones has been so successful in warfare specifically because there is no good counter, and numbers can be used to overcome more effective countermeasures.
Helms deep had walls which were impassable before breaching. Drones leak through defenses like a sieve.
Dude, I am not talking about capabilities we have. We’re talking about massive drone-on-drone wars, not today.
So thank you for contributing to some other conversation, but your comment does not exist in the same universe as mine.
That world is here and now. The only futuristic or scifi element is the perfect defense.
Yeah, destroying inanimate robots isn’t really going to get your enemy to capitulate. Like shooting Iran’s missiles out of the sky isn’t going to change their plan.
People need to die in warfare for it to matter. Economic and infrastructure targets are really only useful in reaching that goal of killing.
Until the drones start getting used on civilians. Which is absolutely going to happen and soon.
It’s been happening for a good 20 years already. Do you think US drone strikes were all military targets? Do you think both russia and ukraine didn’t absolutely dronefuck multiple population centers? Do you think israel didn’t use drones to carry out its genocides? There are probably tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dead civilians due to drone strikes already.
You’re not wrong but I was specifically referencing the ground based drones with my comment. Apologies that wasn’t clear.
Ah yeah, that makes sense. But I feel like it may be a bit easier to run away from a ground-based drone than it is from an aerial one. For one, they’re much slower so you’d probably have a more advanced warning.
It’s been happening for ages already. What reality do you people live in?
“Whaddya mean, ‘you people’?”
We should probably secure rights to EMPs for self defense.
How long until inter-country conflicts are settled by robot battles and we’re basically living the plot of Robo Jox?
might lead to faster extinction via other methods tho…
Would be super interested to see the camera feed from all the drones involved.