Re:The Era of the Drone Swarm Is Coming
by carapace on Friday October 26, 2018 @01:05AM
(#18306904)
So this is mostly about drone-based warfare, which is uninteresting in the limit because nanotech and "Toner". (That's a "Diamond Age" reference.)
The challenge is securely coordinating your swarm so it can be controlled by you and not suborned by your enemies. It can't really be done, basically you wind up recapitulating an immune system and that's the best you can do. I've been thinking about this for years and there's just no way truly be certain that all your hardware will actually follow your order when the shit hits the fan.
Anyway, if you have the technology to make drone war then you also have the technology to make techno-utopia. So the real issue is for us to globally chill out and be excellent to each other. Otherwise all these machines are going to be a hazard, not a benefit. (That's a Bladerunner reference. Another scary tech is realistic beyond-the-Uncanny-Valley androids. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates ...or same but small...)
The challenge is securely coordinating your swarm so it can be controlled by you and not suborned by your enemies. It can't really be done, basically you wind up recapitulating an immune system and that's the best you can do. I've been thinking about this for years and there's just no way truly be certain that all your hardware will actually follow your order when the shit hits the fan.
Anyway, if you have the technology to make drone war then you also have the technology to make techno-utopia. So the real issue is for us to globally chill out and be excellent to each other. Otherwise all these machines are going to be a hazard, not a benefit. (That's a Bladerunner reference. Another scary tech is realistic beyond-the-Uncanny-Valley androids. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates ...or same but small...)