FPVs are the most distinctive element in Russian-Ukrainian war, changing many traditional war dogmas. So far AI in this war wasn't heavily used, FPVs are controlled by humans at both sides. I feel uneasy with more AI tech improving FPVs. It's inevitable, but it'll be utilised by military operations to kill more people, to conduct terror acts, controlled from afar. It allows weak players to have more leverage which is not always a good thing, and certainly disrupts power balance. Think about Al-Qaeda bringing a truck of explosive drones to Washington DC and unleashing them at White House, all autonomous, with cameras guiding the way.
I don't know, this drone race is to combat drones what F1 racing is to self driving cars. In order to win in these races, you just need to precisely control speed around well-defined turns and stuff. You don't need to adapt to a new environment. It's not surprising to me that a computer program would win in such a controlled environment.
> It allows weak players to have more leverage
I think it depends on the dominant type of defensive counter-technology used. If it's something with high capital costs like a laser or a microwave, then it will centralize combat because the USA could invest in the infrastructure needed to defeat terrorists, but not the reverse. On the other hand, if you can effectively destroy these things with birdshot, then it may not be a problem for humanity at large. I could imagine you could make some device that tracks the drones and shoots them down for much less than the price of a drone.
For example look at the iron dome: it is effective defense measure but very difficult to scale up to counter ICBMs.
>I could imagine you could make some device that tracks the drones and shoots them down for much less than the price of a drone.
The cost of a FPV quadcopter is pennies on the dollar cost of a defense system. You can 3D print a dozen frames in hours with a decent printer. Its just bolt on the parts and do a quick function test with a script or controller and its ready for action.
What point are you trying to make. Because the iron dome is hideously expensive. It costs so much more then the missiles it intercepts that it's worth it for terrorists to fire on israel purely to waste their money.
The iranian icbms from Yemen gets shot down by other systems. I don't think they are scaled up versions of the iron dome. What's interesting is the lack of confidence israel has in predicting their trajectory. They usually send up multiple interceptors for a single missile and put sirens on for half the country.
The only really economical counter i've heard of is lasers but it doesn't look like they are coming any time soon.
I've got no idea what method Israel uses to counter drones, but they certainly have struggled with them.
My absolute nightmare scenario is Iran via its proxies unleashing swarms of autonomous kamikaze drones in population centres.
Aren't lasers here already? There were pictures of Israel using them.
You're right i didn't know that. They are using lasers to fry drones, but not yet against missiles, even though the iron beam was announced 10 years ago. It sounds like the system is still being developed/rolled out. It will be great when it works because finally Israel will have an interceptor that's cheaper then the target.
> I feel uneasy with more AI tech improving FPVs. It's inevitable, but ...
It unfortunately goes even deeper than that. The Quadcopter FPV community is watching their open source software actively be picked up for warfare, and can often tell what version they were running when watching released Russian & Ukrainian footage later.
Every beneficial step we make in the maker community will be used to expedite death in conflict. A few 3D printers and a digikey order are all you really need to seed an insurgent movement at this point.