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Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by pierrec on Thursday October 25, 2018 @10:37PM (#18306346)
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).

Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by leovander on Thursday October 25, 2018 @11:24PM (#18306530)
And just about a year before that on Black Mirror.

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

Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by nradov on Thursday October 25, 2018 @11:42PM (#18306625)
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.
Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by torgian on Friday October 26, 2018 @12:20AM (#18306763)
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.

Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by jon_richards on Friday October 26, 2018 @12:28AM (#18306787)
I imagine Bill Gates' mosquito killing laser research is going to become a lot more popular soon.
Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by Pxtl on Friday October 26, 2018 @05:52PM (#18312965)
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.

Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by roenxi on Friday October 26, 2018 @12:25AM (#18306776)
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.

Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by nradov on Friday October 26, 2018 @12:28AM (#18306786)
Modern US military body armor is actually quite an effective countermeasure against most bullets. Check the casualty statistics from recent conflicts.
Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by hn_throwaway_99 on Friday October 26, 2018 @01:06AM (#18306908)
Oh, yay, always looked forward to having everyone walk around in military grade body armor.
Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming by nradov on Friday October 26, 2018 @01:18AM (#18306945)
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.