Comment by XorNot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by XorNot | Hacker News Reader

The message of this film feels extremely confused - probably because it's trying to single-mindedly push an agenda rather then explore the problem space. In a world where apparently drone-swarms are this cheap...what, no one ever developed counter-drones? It's the reason grey goo isn't a realistic scenario for nanotechnology: the goo has to replicate, whereas all the counter-goo has to do is kill it.

Same issue: a world where the technology to build an incredibly cheap drone that size which can hunt humans with facial recognition based on specific parameters exists...is also a world in which an anti-drone can use the exact same technology and just ram into unidentified drone vehicles to disable them. If the swarms are cheap enough for terrorists, then the counter-swarms are monumentally cheaper.

EDIT: It's worth noting you could argue other scenarios - like only governments building these, but that's what I mean by the message being confused - it's not clear what the threat is supposed to be.

I don't think "people will invent countermeasures" is a particularly good argument. We have countermeasures against chemical weapons - but not everyone has them all the time. We would still be better off if we hadn't opened that pandora's box.

For an eight minute video, it does a decent job of exploring the consequences of a weapon that can kill remotely, with minimal collateral damage, and with no supervision. They touch on potential use against terrorists, political opponents, and activists. The main point being that once you release thing into the wild, you have little control over how it will be used.

> We would still be better off if we hadn't opened that pandora's box.

I don't think that's a reasonable assumption to make. I have no evidence either way, but I can easily instantly theorize that lots of medical advancements might have come from the same people that got their feet wet in chemical weapon technology, in later stages of their careers/life.

Again, I don't really have an opinion, and haven't really thought it through - I'm just saying your blanket statement needs a citation.

Complete defense is more expensive than targeted offence.

Can we afford to and do we wish to have a number of anti-drones flying everywhere in public space and our own homes?

> In a world where apparently drone-swarms are this cheap...what, no one ever developed counter-drones?

Perhaps someone has. The reason those are ineffective in the scenarios depicted is the same as with present day terrorism: In order to prevent these attacks you have to succeed every time whereas the terrorists only have to succeed once to wreak havoc.

>> In a world where apparently drone-swarms are this cheap...what, no one ever developed counter-drones?

Well, in a world where developing assault rifles is actually rather cheap, nobody has really developed any convincing countermeasures. Infantry still gets killed if you shoot them with an AK-47, etc.

So there can be weapons without countermeasures. The point of the video is that the possibility exists to develop the weapon to begin with - and that is already concerning enough.

The difference here is that you can buy everything shown in that video (except the explosive) on Amazon. The drone can even be bought pre-made, all you need to do is implement a more capable system for autonomous control, which is also doable for simpler scenarios.

This is in comparison to the significant difficulty of making a barrel or any of the mechanical parts for an AK-47.

Counter-goo also has to self-replicate, or otherwise be available in huge quantities.

The only currently existing self-replicating nanotech is called “life”, and plenty of that has been getting in our way for as long as there has been an us to get in the way of.

Unless you count bootstraping on existing life, I have it on good authority (someone with a PhD in material science from Cambridge) that nobody knows how to make fully self-replicating devices yet, not even clanking replicators.

As for drones… well, I can think of terrible ways to weaponise them, how to defend drones from simple counter-attacks, and then how to use that counter attack mechanism as city-wide anti-drone tech, but in the medium-likelyhood event that my ideas are not fundamentally flawed, I don’t want to give people ideas.

That's a good point- even if countermeasures can be developed, there's nothing stopping development of anti-counter-measures, and so on.

The trick is to not take the first step down that rabbit hole otherwise we will forever be chasing our tail and we'll never feel secure again.

Anyone can take the first step. I’d prefer some sneaky billionaire builds consumer products with surprising features, like Tesla cars being safe from chemical weapons or hybrid VR-AR goggles that just coincidentally make it impossible to be permanently blinded by laser weapons.

to develop countermeasures is always way harder than developing an assaulting technology. like firing a rocket is easy, but catching it mid flight is very difficult.

That's funny, I already have anti-drone technology in my kitchen. Take the magnetron from the microwave and use a Wok as a dish to create an approximately directional 1kW microwave energy weapon. Aim it at the swarm of drones and sweep back and forth. They'll all fall out of the air up to some range.

So you're going to walk around with a massive metal plate and a huge battery strapped to your back? Nevermind the fact that you probably couldn't react quickly enough to use it even if you carried it everywhere.

I would just have an EMP wrist watch or something. Wouldn't take much of a pulse to knock out one of these bad boys.

If you had an "EMP wristwatch" that could disable even a pocket calculator (without blowing your hand off), I'd be impressed.

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