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…
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.
It’s more like 2.5 billion for R&D and then 2.5 billion to create the factory that builds them and the first thousand units. The per unit cost is initially high and then comes down once all the front end work is done.
And as with many programs, the R&D phase may lead to a brand new use-case for drones or an entirely different purpose for one of the drone prototypes. So there can be unknown benefits too.
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.
I’d also like to know the degree of autonomy. Just because they can fly without a human on the stick constantly doesn’t mean they are choosing their missions.
This shit is inevitable but damn am I not looking forward to robot genocide. It’ll be so much easier if all you need is some money and a few distant operators. International law won’t do shit when there’s money on the line.
Robot v. robot “conventional” wars won’t be much better, either. Without human casualties there’s not really any consequences or reason for any party to capitulate. So either you have to completely starve your opponent of resources or start targeting civilians. The latter being way more effective and cheaper.
Boeing and the like are probably stocking up on extra suits as they can’t stop drooling all over themselves.
War with minimal casualties just means more and more money to steal from us to dump into military technology corps for longer periods of time since the population won’t be in an uproar over loss of life.
Ahem, Acktually this would be more akin to the hit 2000s movie Stealth starring Jamie Foxx and Jessica Biel. Terminator is more like what Boston Dynamics does. 🤖
Note: “hit” is very loosely used here.
Just want to add that Macross Plus came out first and has far more amazing story - just skim Macross wiki for a history primer up to Macross 7, as Plus takes place before it. That said, if one is interested in partaking, it comes in at least two flavors: mini-series or movie. Suggestion: watch both as each has content the other doesn’t.
Can’t post image replys, so I’ll just post a link:
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/386/534/fd2.jpg
$5.8 billion on useless bullshit but we “can’t afford” universal healthcare.
Lol that’s is money that will be stolen by American oligarchs then they will get another few billion after this. The US is a terminally corrupt society
