this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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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."

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[–] ArbitraryValue 40 points 1 year ago (15 children)

$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...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] CapnMoisesBKind 2 points 1 year ago

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.

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