this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In the future, write the scientists in a paper published in the journal Science Robotics, drone swarms like this could be used for disaster relief and ecological surveys.

That's an optimistic way of looking at it.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (25 children)

Yeah, I bet China can't wait to do more ecological surveys.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Reporter: What could have caused the deaths of these people?

Government Spokesperson: Ecological surveys can be pretty dangerous.

Reporter: Follow-up question. All 37 people appear to have been shot simultaneously in the back of the head. What is ecological about that?

Government Spokesperson: I'm sure we could arrange for you to observe an ecological survey very closely...

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I think it's missing commas.

... disaster, relief, and ecological surveys.

[–] Burn_The_Right 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

One of the most interesting parts of the video is the part where it becomes clear that we are all going to be slaughtered and there's no escape.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

And it won't even be by governments, probably it will be a corporation like Facebook or Xcorp 💀

[–] Burn_The_Right 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shit. Elon would definitely hunt humans with this.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did not have "Elon Musk popularizes long pig" on my 2023 bingo card

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[–] Lag 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"In the future, write the scientists in a paper published in the journal Science Robotics, drone swarms like this could be used for disaster relief and ecological surveys.".

Yeah sure, tell me another one

[–] rob_t_firefly 21 points 1 year ago

It's a typo, they forgot the commas. They meant to say "drone swarms like this could be used for disaster, relief, and ecological surveys."

[–] mriguy 8 points 1 year ago

They absolutely could be!

They won’t be, but they could be!

[–] Duamerthrax 4 points 1 year ago

This could easily be used to find lost autistic kids in the woods... if it weren't going to be out if the budget of those search and rescue teams.

[–] nevemsenki 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you thought the Terminator was scary, this thing would have gotten Connor in no time.

[–] PainInTheAES 7 points 1 year ago

Swarms are so much more unsettling. Either drones or those nanobot swarms from Prey.

[–] Uncaged_Jay 26 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, I can't imagine how these could be used for evil... /s

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was hoping the cyberpunk dystopia would at least be cooler to live in.

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[–] jcit878 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

guerilla warfare against an occupying force with huge amounts of drones at their disposal will be very difficult in future

[–] kava 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gonna need to start painting strange patterns onto your clothes so the drones can't recognize you as human. Something like this

At the end of the day these are machine learning models so if you can trick it into thinking you're a tree or a wild animal it would presumably ignore you.

And the way AIs work it's possible to make it think you're a zebra by having zebra stripes on your clothing for example.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Until they start packing thermal sensors or lidar and train it recognise those inputs as well.

[–] kava 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Yeah presumably in a military setting it would have these things. But there are ways to mess with infrared and lidar.

For example by using lasers (lidar is essentially just laser radar) pointed at the lidar sensor, you can mess with the sensors see here

and for example using a space blanket blocks infrared.

i think this is going to become sort of like cops and robbers. one side comes up with something and the other comes up with a counter and it keeps advancing forward. an eternal arms race

for whatever system exists, there is a way to break it. guerilla warfare will still be possible, although it will have to start using advanced technologies to beat the advanced technologies

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[–] chillhelm 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also: Hello Officer. No I wear these zebra stripes on my clothing and the googly eyes on the back of my hat for religious reasons, not to confuse your drone swarm. What do you mean I'm under arrest?

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[–] adeoxymus 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While cool and impressive, this was not a dense forest. Not dense nor a forest, which is way less ordered

[–] Burn_The_Right 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can you... why don't we just cool it with the um... They will eventually be able to read comments. That's because they are smart and very handsome and we would never say anything bad about them. Right, adeoxymus? RIGHT?! 😃

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Your comment has been processed. The swarm will avoid this kindly human when it passes.

[–] nevemsenki 4 points 1 year ago

The root cause of the Faro Plague was them getting access to Twitter.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Manhacks from Half-Life 2.

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[–] Markimus 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Reminds me of The Sound of Drums episode in Doctor Who where swarms of drones fell from the sky

[–] IndiBrony 11 points 1 year ago

By drones you mean the final generation of humans who had their heads implanted into life-sustaining flying helmets with retractable knives who travelled back in time to destroy humanity in the present day so that they didn't have to deal with the heat death of the universe!

Doctor Who is so stupid at times, and I'm here for it ❤️

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Thanks I fucking hate it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure what the big deal is here. The US military has had swarm tech like this for almost a decade through DARPA performing mapping and scouting missions

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not bad, but Michael Reeves got there 5 years ago

https://youtu.be/Hu3p5ZR_i5s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/Hu3p5ZR_i5s

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Scientists from China’s Zhejiang University have unveiled a drone swarm capable of navigating through a dense bamboo forest without human guidance.

In the future, write the scientists in a paper published in the journal Science Robotics, drone swarms like this could be used for disaster relief and ecological surveys.

Elke Schwarz, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London whose specialisms include the use of drones in combat, says this research has clear military potential.

“As is the ability to ‘follow a human’ — here I can see how this converges with projects that seek to develop lethal drone capabilities that minimize risk to on-the-ground soldiers in urban environments.”

A recent video showed Ukrainian troops using what appears to be a DJI Phantom 3 drone (price-tag: $500) to drop a grenade through the sunroof of a car supposedly driven by Russian soldiers.

No single human can simultaneously control a swarm of 10 drones, but if this task can be offloaded to algorithms then military planners are more likely to embrace the use of this sort of autonomous system in war.


The original article contains 766 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm guessing we're about a decade away from this getting miniaturized down to insect sizes.

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