I man at this point, given what we know I'm sure someone smart can connect some dots and describe what's inevitable with 99% confidence just in the next year or two in terms of society right?
The only question is whether motors or propellers will be banned for private sale first. (After drones themselves, of course.)
Why? Just request a Waymo, and then put your suitcase nuke in the backseat and watch it be delivered by AI. There's all sorts of ways to kill with AI without needing drones
Ironically the hard part of that is still more "suitcase nuke" than "last mile delivery".
I'm mildly suprised that the US hasn't seen a breakout of car bombs since Oklahoma City or WTC. It seems that the tradition force of using guns for the frequent mass casualty suicide terrorism events is too strong.
Guns are easy to get, they’re portable, they’re easy to use, and they are stable and safe to operate. Bombs are pretty much none of those things. Bombs are not sold at your local Walmart or sporting goods store, they don have weekend bomb shows at your local convention centers, they require some skill to make, the raw ingredients are tracked at point of sale, and to have the same casualty count tends to require a large amount. It doesn’t take much reasoning to understand why guns are the goto choice
Waymo is not anonymous
goodgooglymoogly, some people just are not creative thinkers at all. you think someone with the ability of creating a suitcase nuke isn't going to have the means to have a fake identity specifically for this purpose? or just steal someone else's? or being willing to make that sacrifice so being anonymous isn't a requirement?
Drones seem a lot easier and more flexible than all that. And you could operate them at scale. I’m not particularly concerned about weapons in the hands of an isolated criminal. That already exists everywhere. I’m concerned about sophisticated organizations
Yeah I man with each day the chance of a shocking event increases to 100% with predictable outcomes. But yeah thats what I'm thinking of .. there has to be a finite number of dimensions for this and related technologies in terms of use and impact (legal, economics, PR, military, political etc), some are fuzzier than others but some should be pretty clear for some analyst to share..
I kind of prefer this, even without bombs i dont want unregulated idiots dropping a drone on my head in an urban space.
My first worry wouldn't be this.
I got out of doing drone work because of all the FAA restrictions on where you can fly drones now. Within 30 miles of a major metro area? Nope. Within 20 miles of an airport? Nope. I'm exaggerating of course, but it got to a point where I was having real problems trying to find areas where you can fly a drone just for fun so I just gave up and quit.
My more immediate fear would be how the gov can control who and where these drones will be able to fly. If some revolutionary built a swarm of drones, it would be pretty easy (I would think) for the gov to just jam the signal and shut them down.
The parts? I'm not worried about. Its the gov holding the keys to access that makes me more worried.
Jam what signal? You'd need a HERF gun to stop an autonomous drone -- a real one, not something made from recycled microwave oven parts -- and an EMP bomb of some sort to stop a swarm of them.
Uh, jamming has been used since the beginning of the Russian/Ukrainian war. Its literally one of the main areas that has become a game of cat and mouse on both sides.
The Black Eye is a suitcase-sized radio noisemaker that can muddle the signals that control all but the best fiber-optic drones. According to an electronic warfare expert who writes under the pseudonym “Roy,” Black Eye can ground surveillance and attack drones from as far as 4 kilometers away, “when located high enough.”
Unlike many other jammers, which target the drone, the Black Eye targets the drone’s operator—blocking a drone’s command signal at its source. The new jammer “is appearing across the whole front,” Roy wrote. “This is a serious development for Ukraine.”
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/05/06/blackeyejammers/
More recently:
Kvertus’ innovative EW backpack system provides Ukrainian troops with a mobile counter-drone shield for just $7,000. Operating in the 720-1050 MHz range, it jams and disables threatening Russian drones.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/05/17/the-ew-backpack-revol...
I think you're missing the whole 'autonomous' thing here.
There is no signal, and there is no operator.
The US govt has been working on countering autonomous drones for years now.
The Department is mitigating the potential negative effects of unmanned systems on U.S. forces, assets, and installations – at home and abroad. A critical portion of our efforts, particularly in the near-term, comes from improving our defenses, with an emphasis on detection as well as active and passive defenses
https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/05/2003599149/-1/-1/0/FAC...
Its been working on countering drones (unmanned systems) for years; most of the drone threat it has been focused on is not autonomous but remotely-controlled. But there is considerable overlap in countermeasures (other than ones that target the control channel of remotely controlled drones.)
What countermeasures exist against a swarm of autonomous drones, other than an EMP weapon?
(Other than CIWS, because nothing like that can be used on land.)
> (Other than CIWS, because nothing like that can be used on land.)
Someone should tell the US, UK, Israel, and Australia (all of whom operate the Centurion C-RAM/Land Phalanx Weapon System) [0] that that land-based CIWS system, and any potential similar system, cannot be used on land.
10 years.. But yeah. Just wait until these things can move through space with physical/gyro sensors on their own, at affordable costs. When orin nano super is the cost of an Esp32 (and the size of).
No gps, no fiber, no 5g, no jamming except microwaves. A python file and a target.
Scary times ahead.
This is that. This race used only a single forward-facing camera and IMU fed to an onboard Orin NX.
What do you mean just wait until? The entire point of TFA is that AI is controlling the motors directly and not using some human input device. So I guess it's just wait until you actually read TFA and watch the embedded video?
>>Just wait until these things can move through space with physical/gyro sensors on their own,
and better guidance software. Yeah, there's a lot of room for improvement
"Traditional waypoint navigation assumes movement through a series of Cartesian positions. But in pursuit dynamics, for example, what matters is directional alignment over time"
https://github.com/VoxleOne/SpinStep/blob/main/docs/01-ratio...