The US Air Force wants $5.8 billion to build 1,000 AI-driven unmanned combat aircraft, possibly more, as part of its next generation air dominance initiative::The unmanned aircraft are ideal for suicide missions, the Air Force says. Human rights advocates call the autonomous lethal weapons “slaughterbots.”
$5.8 billion for a thousand combat drones? That’s incredibly cheap, especially since the implication is that this includes amortized R&D costs and the per-unit cost will eventually be even lower.
As for “slaughterbots” - I’m not sure why some people are inclined to trust human soldiers more than machines. Humans don’t exactly have the best track record for minimizing violence…
6 million dollars apiece is cheap?
The F35 costs about 80 million and they sell like hotcakes. Yes, 6 million is cheap.
It’s almost unbelievably cheap for a combat aircraft - over five times cheaper than an MQ-9 Reaper drone, which costs 32 million. (And Reapers aren’t capable of air-to-air combat, although they have other capabilities that these drones will probably lack.) Manned fighters cost even more. An F-35 is 80 million, and it’s a relatively low-priced jet. An F-22 costs about twice as much. Even a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is 400 thousand.
The problem with slaughter bots is that the chain of command to kill can be shortened to just one person.
The chain of command for a human is much more complex and can have a moral circuit breaker in every part of that chain.
I think the scary part is when one guy and an obedient AI control millions of slaughterbots.
And is that better or worse than when he dies from tripping down a stairwell but the AI remembers the whole mission.
A lot of this was planned already. Primarily the capability to turn existing aircraft platforms into ‘missile trucks’ which circle an area autonomously while waiting for the F35 controller to select a target.
Well that’s great I guess. Like the human piloting the F35 or F24 will act as a spotter then the bots will fire when instructed. It creeps me out if they will be given autonomy to fire.
i think $5.8 for only r&d and production cost 1000 craft will be different
Based on my simple movie watching experience neither do machines so check, mate.