HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Why require RF at all? An attacker could give the drone a location they know their target will be at and let the drone autonomously guide itself to the target.

[This dramatization][^1] focuses on full autonomy, but I'd argue it applies just as much to the steps leading up to it. All the more reason to take this threat seriously now.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ kkfx

Since the actual state of objects automatic recognition the drone might autonomously fly to a location, perhaps following shooting noise, but once arrived can't easy decide who to hit and can't hit anyone. At the same location drone itself is an easy target to shot down.

Did you just upgrade the Slaughter bots? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

actually I think that you didn't because slaughter bots are trying to not cause any collateral damage

Not very impressive... I like those better, myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

I think it depends, right?

If you have a small number of high cost, high impact UAVs, you will target infra and supply columns.

If you happen to have a cargo plane full of cheap, mass produced head-popper slaughterbots which you can dump over a town, they will remove all the humans and leave you with intact buildings, vehicles, and infra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ rsecora

Parent comment was jokingly paraphrasing General Bradley words: “Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics."

There are better videos of it on Youtube... but it reminds me of the Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

Compare this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

With this:

USA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jlm2olEyXI

INDIA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq2kJlbUXEw

⬐ imtringued

Reality is boring. The drones will be used for surveillance but the death will be delivered by regular firearms. The holocaust was "expensive" enough to justify shipping people into a central location where they are executed as efficiently as possible. What makes people think that a government would be willing to spend $5000 per killed civilian when it has to kill hundreds of millions?

⬐ ajuc

I agree, with one correction: majority of Holocaust victims never seen a camp (neither concentration nor death camp). They were executed with regular firearms near the place they lived.

Camps were for undesirables that for whatever reason couldn't be killed immediately. Mostly because there were too many of them in one place.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28797055

We are getting closer to a slaughter bot that is actually usable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

my guess is that politicians will get scared when it becomes a reality

Slaughterbots (from 2018) is pretty terrifying. Do you want your local police force to have this?

https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ trhway

resounding yes. With an armed drone/robot being in the line of perceived danger instead of a police the police looses that "split second decision" argument that has been letting them to kill all those people just because the shadow looked like a gun instead of a say giraffe.

You remove police from the harms ways - you remove the glorification and their high-caste "above the law" status, and their union wouldn't have such huge political power, nor public support for those state budget crushing humongous pensions.

Also with a robot shooting precisely there would be no need for that "stopping power" BS with illegal under Geneva hollow point bullets killing that violently that the police so likes to use (driving end result more toward death due to large blood loss and tremendous tissue damage inflicted by the hollow point - all unnecessary really). The robot(s) can just precisely disable arms and/or legs with much less severe wounds (like police in some other countries do) using smaller caliber or even just an electric shock or temporarily motor nerve blocking agent, sleeping chemicals, etc.

Also the robots will treat people equally, and thus big people getting the same law enforcement treatment as the rest of us little people may force the big people to adjust the law enforcement toward more reasonable approach. (i mean for example why the corporate IT support sucks so much? Well, what you would expect giving that the execs have their separate IT. Imagine if they had to use the same IT as rank-and-file and the IT couldn't tell whether it is an exec or regular Shmoe :)

⬐ andrew_

What's the over/under on ED-209 making a comeback?

I like this example, the Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

Killer bees are in S02E06 "Hated in the Nation", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hated_in_the_Nation

There is another one with killer dogs in an apocalyptic wasteland (in black and white), S04E05 "Metalhead".

The short film "Slaughterbots" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw) fits it even more precisely though, I'd say.

"Slaughterbots" comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

My duder you should watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

I know it is rather sensationalized, but how far off is this kind of technology? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw "Slaughterbots" posted in 2017.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the tiny drones in this video still aren't capable of carrying the computational horsepower necessary for a lot of the activities portrayed.

But...isn't it really a matter of time?

Combine that with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ nappy-doo

Mods: 2017, please.

I think about this video all the time. This is the future of warfare, and it's coming. Like it or not, this is where the world is going to go.

Recently, I listened to a podcast about the second civil war in America (It Could Happen Here), and it was chilling. It showed the warfare is asymmetric now, and a 2B bomber is useless against a motivated attacker with 20k worth of drones. The future of warfare is through 3D printing and ML tech; and, the future is here.

⬐ PeterisP

It's the present of warfare.

It's worth looking at video evidence of drone usage examples from the recent conflicts.

We've seen small drones dropping mortar rounds in trenches simply by flying above the correct spot near the entrance to a bunker and releasing it. We've seen ammo dumps being ignited by drones carrying thermite loads. We've seen long-range drone attacks on oil processing facilities, getting through expensive anti-air defences simply by sacrificing many cheap drones. Etc.

The currently ongoing Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict in Arcah/Nagorno-Karabah (in some aspects, a proxy "test" of Turkish tech vs Russian tech) is worth looking at, since drones/UAVs are a key part of military activity there.

⬐ amelius

If this is real, then what are some countermeasures?

⬐ Kaibeezy

Chicken wire.

Eagles.

⬐ HillRat

In the short terms, EW and CIWS, which can be countered by “Wild Weasel” drones and overwhelming CIWS systems with cheap decoys. Now that low-tier states are fighting it out with autonomous systems purchased from mid-tier states in conditions significantly different from how (e.g.) the US has been using them, expect to see a brutally Darwinian evolution of TTPs in the field.

⬐ PeterisP

I believe that the recent conflicts are good examples that EW doesn't work. Perhaps USA has EW that would work, but Russia is (was?) generally considered to have effective EW, and we are seeing EW systems themselves getting directly taken out by drones.

I think that we don't have effective countermeasures now; you just have to expect and tolerate drone strikes just as you have to expect and tolerate artillery strikes.

CIWS systems are rare, bulky and expensive - you can use them to protect certain high-value targets (e.g. ships) but they don't scale to protect infantry emplacements, moving vehicles or the perimeter of large bases.

Anti-air missiles work against the larger (and more dangerous) UAVs, however, the problem is that if you have to shoot down cheap drones with the current very expensive missiles, then you still lose on a cost/efficiency basis.

The role of aviation a couple decades ago involved a limited amount of very effective but very expensive aircraft - and we have effective but expensive countermeasures. The current situation involves lots of cheap aircraft hitting expensive targets (e.g. tanks and various vehicle-based weapon systems). So we need either to have lots of cheap countermeasures, or accept the drone reality which means that high-value targets don't survive, so instead of a single great but expensive tank you'd need perhaps four quadbikes with rocket launchers, or a dozen small unmanned tracked vehicles.

⬐ Valgrim

For those who don't speak warspeech:

EW: Electronic Warfare; any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults

CIWS: Close-in Weapon System; a point-defense weapon system for detecting and destroying short-range incoming missiles and enemy aircraft which have penetrated the outer defenses, typically mounted shipboard in a naval capacity. A gun-based CIWS usually consists of a combination of radars, computers and rotary or revolver cannon placed on a rotating, automatically aimed gun mount.

Wild Weasel: an aircraft, of any type, equipped with anti-radiation missiles and tasked with the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. In brief, the task of a Wild Weasel aircraft is to bait enemy anti-aircraft defenses into targeting it with their radars, whereupon the radar waves are traced back to their source, allowing the Weasel or its teammates to precisely target it for destruction.

TTP: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures; The role of TTPs in terrorism analysis is to identify individual patterns of behavior of a particular terrorist activity, or a particular terrorist organisation, and to examine and categorize more general tactics and weapons used by a particular terrorist activity, or a particular terrorist organisation.

⬐ HillRat

I could have been less-acronym heavy! :) (The only correction is that TTPs can refer to tactical doctrine in general, which is the spirit I used it in.)

To be a little more specific, what we’re seeing in Nagorno-Karabakh seems to be focused on using drones to disrupt sustainment and movement by attacking convoys, so a lot of doctrinal innovation is likely to be based on how to protect against drones while on the move, which will, of course, trigger further counter-counter-drone innovations.

⬐ detritus

Ha, I'm just back from a walk down the street where a thought popped into mind, upon seeing a group of people, how 'easy' it would be to drop a load of simple flechettes from a drone and cause havoc all for an impressively low amount of money. No complicated to make/source explosives or poisons or chemicals - just a quadcopter and some bits of metal.

I have a lot of such happy thoughts.

⬐ TeMPOraL

Ever since I saw it in some old GTA game, I keep wondering why bombs strapped to small RC cars aren't used much more often by gangs and terrorists. I'm still not sure why, but I think for the same reasons the attack you just described hasn't happened yet, despite it being easy to do.

⬐ detritus

Well, my happy thought doesn't require explosives, just a bit of altitude!

⬐ amelius

And lifting power. You'd need quite a lot of it if you'd want to deploy this to a larger group of people. For this reason I think it's not allowed to fly larger/heavier drones without a permit.

⬐ detritus

Sure, but who would procure a permit for a one-time use terrorist device built from off the shelf parts?

Also, you only care about getting the thing into position and then dropping its payload - it doesn't much matter what happens to it after, so your energy requirements don't need to require landing. Heck, the drone itself could be considered a secondary payload.

⬐ opwieurposiu

This idea has been tried, for example in the vietnam war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_Dog_(bomb)

⬐ detritus

Aye - 'flechettes' were used in WWI - basically arrow heads dropped from the barest of planes able to be described as such.

It's incredibly old 'tech'.

- ed - oops! I see that's right there in your link.

⬐ imtringued

10k worth of drones? That pays for like one and a half Warmates [0]? Drones are far more expensive than you think.

Also there are unmanned autonomous ground vehicles that can launch these like the mission master[1].

It's merely a force multiplier for soldiers. Not some indiscriminate killing machine. Imagine a slaugherbots video based on conventional fighter jets or bombers. They would show them used indiscriminately too. The video is mostly FUD. Any military that gives AI the authority to designate targets is no longer in control of their weapons so it would never happen.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzOH5fBAqw [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_O85m6VXn8

⬐ tim333

130 comments back then https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15731913

⬐ rektide

Pretty terrifying.

Recent news was China building a 48x drone suicide swarm launcher[1], yikes. Meanwhile robotic wingmen seem to be increasingly talked up everywhere, everyone wants em.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/10/14/china-...

⬐ arminiusreturns

See, what I find interesting is that even before it was a reality (in the public sphere), this was one of the main justificatons being used in the smoke filled backrooms for the turning on of the total surveillance system. The end of the nation state threat actor and the beginning of single-actors being able to do just as much damage if they wanted. Hence, they want to track everything and everyone in the hopes that at a minimum they can "walk the cat back", but things are headed for predictive analytics which have all kinds of dangers/downsides.

I don't agree with it, but understanding that is the position many of the machiavellian natsec experts are coming from really helps in having more productive conversations.

⬐ mckirk

Ah yes, I hadn't mentally added the Minority Report angle to my dystopian visions of the future, but you're completely right...

⬐ nix23

Pah...nothing against Motorcycles with Knives ;)

⬐ wombatpm

I'm more partial to the angle teeth dropped from high altitude weather balloons with smart bomb accuracy

⬐ nix23

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series)

But no Sharks with Lasers...well he missed a opportunity.

⬐ zxcmx

If they don't have to be computer controlled I'm rooting for the swarms of incendiary bats.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

⬐ d33lio

The elite have already accomplished this. They've convinced you guns in the hands of civilians are a menace and danger to society and that the police you thought were there to protect you are really hunting you. You are a victim, you are powerless comply or be killed by your fellow citizens.

AI has also been used in defense for at least a decade now...

⬐ imtringued

Yeah it's pretty interesting that people are scared of flying plastic but not real humans doing the same thing.

⬐ d33lio

Why wait for AI powered mini killer drones when you could conjure up a relatively large group of religious extremists, a bag of knives from a kitchen supply store and a vague description of Western White Infidel TM?

⬐ vorpalhex

For those confused without more context:

This is a fictional, theoretical depiction of what a drone based attack could look like, followed by a short statement by a professor.

My thoughts:

+ This did a poor job differentiating between AI and just drone warfare. You don't need an AI to launch a bunch of drones with payloads. My local middleschool can fly a bunch of drones, and they do it monthly in a nearby parking lot.

+ Neither the video nor the website dictates what, exactly the ban is of. "Lethal Autonomous Weapons", sure, but are we banning like drone motors or FPV cameras or what? How do we not ban "Drone carrying a camera" but do ban "drone carrying homemade explosive" in a way that's meaningful beyond making it extra-illegal to do a terrorism?

+ The website mostly seems concerned about human-in-the-killchain systems versus automated systems. That's a fair distinction to be concerned about, but doesn't appear to be related to the theoretical attack they show.

Insert obligatory reference to Slaughterbots (2017)

https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ est31

Black Mirror has an episode on this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hated_in_the_Nation

⬐ DuskStar

I think that might be a reupload of this? https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA

3x the views, at least.

Reminded me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

Reminds me of the slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

Makes be think of slaughterbots based on some comments and concepts touched on here

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

those mini drones are pretty cool too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

Most of sci-fi paints a dark picture about a future with robots, though, and perhaps rightfully so.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18300084

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&vl=en

⬐ erikpukinskis

Indeed and perhaps wrongfully so as well.

I really like the slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ User23

Interestingly, black powder era technology easily defeats "stochastic motion." It's called a shotgun.

⬐ OrgNet

Can you defend yourself from a swarm of 10 coming from all directions at 30mph?

⬐ User23

With 10 shotguns using the same AI? Why not?

⬐ justinclift

Along similar lines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n9BoDpnhmk

⬐ chiefofgxbxl

What a thought-provoking short video, thanks for sharing.

As for the researchers aiming to ban autonomous weapons at the UN, how would instituting a ban actually solve anything? It wouldn't prevent someone in their basement from building them, nor would it be a deterrent to states with a strong military from developing them.

I'm surprised there's no mention of the short film "Slaughterbots" on this exact topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&vl=en

It's very well done and has an HN vibe to it (with a dark twist, of course).

⬐ nradov

No need to panic. Just because the video has high production values doesn't mean it's an accurate prediction of the future, or that effective countermeasures won't be found.

⬐ roenxi

We've never really found an effective countermeasure to bullets apart from avoiding people who want to shoot us.

If someone develops what is essentially a bullet with 365-degree acceleration, I doubt there is going to be a better strategy than hoping that one is never fired at us.

⬐ nradov

Modern US military body armor is actually quite an effective countermeasure against most bullets. Check the casualty statistics from recent conflicts.

⬐ hn_throwaway_99

Oh, yay, always looked forward to having everyone walk around in military grade body armor.

⬐ nradov

The point is that — contrary to what @roenxi asserted — effective countermeasures do exist for those who really need them. But the vast majority of us are at near zero risk of being shot today or attacked by drones in the future. No one cares enough about us to kill us. Let's not be paranoid.

⬐ torgian

I’m gonna have to say I disagree. We are already making tiny drones the size of bees. And you don’t need that size to make a reliable, one shot bomb to kill someone.

Anyone with time, a bit of money, and a plan can make a swarm of drones to fly into a crowd automatically and blow themselves up remotely.

The fact that I hasn’t happened already just surprises me.

⬐ Pxtl

They could've done that years ago with more conventional remote vehicles and larger bombs.

The real fact is that there aren't that many evil genius terrorists plotting a way to kill a crowd of people.

To me, the worry about killbots is state actors, not terrorists. Countries aren't usually about indiscriminate murder, they're usually trying to scythe away one group... Picking people out of a crowd and murdering them with facial recognition drones is a more realistic fear, imho.

⬐ jon_richards

I imagine Bill Gates' mosquito killing laser research is going to become a lot more popular soon.

⬐ leovander

And just about a year before that on Black Mirror.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709236/

Can anyone in robotics/drones speak as to how far away we are from Slaughterbots? [1]

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&vl=en

⬐ godzillabrennus

The NSA probably already has them.

⬐ dogma1138

depends on how you define "Slaughterbots" any micro drone with a small demo charge can kill a person if it detonates on the skull. Intel has a drone kit which can be pretty autonomous you should be able to train it to explode on heads, you might have a pretty big collateral damage as far as soccer balls and water melons go but it will definitely will detonate enough heads if released into the wild (within it's flight range ofc ;)).

A practical completely autonomous weapon as in one that makes actual decision is pretty far off, however with modern drones pretty much everything is already automated even the weapon release and guidance is machine assisted these days but that is just to help increase the accuracy of the strike as it can compensate for the delay.

Or 3g of shaped explosives.

https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw?t=67

Have you seen the Slaughterbots video? They seem potentially more dangerous and the hardware is much simpler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

If you think this is bad, just wait until criminals and terrorists get their hands on these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ zawerf

I wouldn't worry about the "AI" aspect and cheaply mass-produced aspect of that fictional short film. At least not for a couple more years given how terrible and expensive the existing consumer "follow me" drones are (most of which are not computer vision based). Especially at the size depicted, it can't possibly fly for more than a couple minutes if it also needs to process a video feed.

In that case, a dumb human remote-controlled flying machine gun achievable by hobbyists is about just scary (2012): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNPJMk2fgJU

But mostly because of the machine gun.

Similarly in the kamikaze drones case, just make sure no one can amass a large amount of explosives they can strap onto quadcopters.

⬐ None

None

⬐ mrsteveman1

> specially at the size depicted, it can't possibly fly for more than a couple minutes if it also needs to process a video feed.

Assuming we're talking about 10-20 years from now, what kind of power source could work for a longer period of time without increasing the size?

⬐ ceejayoz

> Assuming we're talking about 10-20 years from now, what kind of power source could work for a longer period of time without increasing the size?

The USAF is playing with latching onto powerlines. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13093-spy-planes-to-r...

⬐ ciconia

No need for hi-tech drones, you can just use a kite:

  https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/massive-fire-after-kite-with-molotov-cocktail-attached-sent-from-gaza-1.6052362

⬐ stef25

Let's have the weapons make the decisions. What could go wrong!

Took me a while to realise this wasn't really real.

Reminds me of a cheap action thriller I read where ant-swarm behaviour is used to program swarms of drones for exactly this kind of stuff.

⬐ sdoering

Thanks a lot. Didn't know that one. Really interesting and executed in a great way.

⬐ cjsawyer

Well, now I’m afraid. Club, bow, cannon, rifle, nuke, and now c4 face targeting done.

⬐ lithos

Interesting.

⬐ mmirate

Time to dig up and repeat some old comments of mine...

I'm 100% fine with these automated killing-machines, and with the implications. (Heck, I'd be more than happy to help develop them, if I had the appropriate skillset.) Because our military's allegiance is to the Constitution not to any single executive administration; because the military have far more resources to purchase bots or counterbots than the police do; and because only an idiot would actually have that tech and yet fail to also have, at minimum, an equally-maneuverable ablative countermeasure drone.

(I should clarify here, that this also depends on that I think that it will indeed be our military who gets them first, not some other nation. ... Unless all of this overly-pacifistic discussion somehow convinces enough of the right people that the U.S. should abandon such research, which is why it's important that this video not be heeded. If and only if some other nation perfects the tech first, then the video's intended sentiment gains merit; that is why we must push forward, Damn The Torpedoes(TM).)

This is because, as usual, the devil is in the details. These are drones, not nukes. Nukes have effects for miles away and are so powerful that a nuclear shaped-charge is impossible; but suicide-drones have to fly directly to their target and reach it intact.

So the same amount of shaped-explosive that can crack a skull, can neutralize one of these drones. As such, the braindead-simple countermeasure is to retarget your own supply of these same drones, at the stolen drones. At worst, your IFF radios might add a negligible amount of mass ... but that won't matter for long, because once the enemy knows you're deploying counterdrones, they'll need their own IFF radios (or at least IFF radio receivers) in order to try to avoid your counterdrones.

(Or the enemy could add armor to their drones, but that will make them massive/unmaneuverable enough that you can increase your counterdrones' explosive payload to penetrate their armor, while still being able to intercept them.)

That is why having slaughterbots and not any countermeasures, is the realm of abject idiocy.

If you're looking for historical analogy, try military aviation in general. During the two World Wars, bomber planes would have been game-changing ... if not that there were fighters, too. A slaughterbot is a bomber; a slaughterbot that seeks the enemy's slaughterbots is a fighter.

(I should also point out that, like the Flying Fortress, this tech won't have a limitless lifespan: once lasers are weaponized or railguns are miniaturized, air defense against macroscopic subsonic objects will become almost trivial. Just like supersonic aircraft with rotary autocannons and laser-guided missiles make a mockery of the Flying Fortress.)

⬐ megous

I'm waiting for a time when being a criminal or a terrorist is decided based purely on what you do, and not on whether some unidentifiable people pushed a button on some machine or made a circle on unsigned paper and thrown it into a box.

Until then, this distinction ("until criminals and terrorists") doesn't really mean anything, when state actors regularly act indistinguishably from criminals and terrorists.

⬐ 0x445442

Bingo! In the US at least, it's the "bad actors" responsibility to keep up with the State in a technological arms race when the State continually pushes closer to "Precogs" as a means of law enforcement.

The problem emerges when an actor most become a monster to win, sort of like Mutually Assured Destruction. I think that scifi shorts have the duty and power to show us the paths that certain developments entail. For example:

- Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

- Last Day of War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjJmTeBSEzU

Another step closer to slaughterbots

https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw

⬐ BoorishBears

To me, the main differences between those “slaughterbots” and the type of terrorist attack we’d see today don’t actually matter to people who would do such a thing.

Sure you don’t have to be as close to the target, but any terror group that could obtain top of the line military hardware and smuggle it close enough could probably smuggle modern hardware that’d do the same. The video makes it seem like the equivalent of a terrorist group armed with top end missles today.

And usually groups that carry out terror attacks don’t care about being found out, the whole idea of “we don’t know who did it” wouldn’t really matter to them.

It’s scary to think about these things until you realize, if people want to cause terror, they can. Today anyone who could setup an attack with explosives could tape them to a drone and strike a person. To me the real question is how can we stabilize international relations and reduce the number of people who are thinking about doing things like this.

If you want something to be scared about, be scared about what the result of global warming will cause when climate change leads to turmoil and further global strife. That’s an outcome that will be deadly with or without “slaughterbots”, that we can actually start trying to solve, instead of preemptively hindering our own technological advancements

Not too smart, hopefully (7-min video, AI Slaughterbots) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw