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Comment by brianwawok | Hacker News Reader

Does it have a human pilot? Any combat aircraft project with a human on board should be stopped. It has no hope of long term parity of a drone controlled airplane without having to cart around meat bags with limited speed and turning power.

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Human pilot optional. I would argue that physical humans are not the limiting factor in bomber performance, and the thought of a Kubernetes cluster autonomously flying around with nukes scares the fuck out of me. In addition to the philosophical implications there's also political reasons to go with a hybrid approach.

> the thought of a Kubernetes cluster autonomously flying around with nukes scares the fuck out of me

I get this, but I also wonder if the same kind of bugs or unintended behavior in a software system aren't just as likely in the protocols, procedures, and chains of command we build for humans to deploy that weaponry. You've got AI doomsday (a la "War Games") on one hand, and bureaucratic doomsday ("Doctor Strangelove") on the other.

That may be the case, but I think the "bugs" in humanity are biased towards not using nuclear weapons. I think that's a good thing.

For example it's very possible that a "Should I launch the nukes?" algorithm would've come up with a different answer than Stanislav Petrov did[1]. There's a similar story about US missileers disregarding a glitch in their own command and control system on Okinawa but the authenticity is suspect.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_al...

The bureaucratic doomsday of Doctor Strangelove happens because the Russians have built their own 'Dead Hand' retaliatory 'AI'.

That's the lynchpin that guarantees Russia will retaliate, but it's Ripper's unchecked moments of control at SAC that set the whole ball rolling, and Slim Pickin's is cowboy-riding that bomb down to the ground whether Russia has an AI or not.

This meme needs to end. It's a damn bomber. The by far biggest problem is that a pilot needs to eat and go to the toilet multiple times during a 20 hour mission and he will be exhausted by the end of the mission.

Repeating the same old "lol quadrocopter go 2000g brrrrrt" meme just makes you look stupid.

> It has no hope of long term parity of a drone controlled airplane without having to cart around meat bags with limited speed and turning power.

It’s a strategic bomber, not a fighter.

I agree with this sentiment for fighter aircraft, but for a stealth bomber carrying thousands of pounds of ordinance, a few human passengers doesn't really matter.

(it's not like these bombers are built to sustain high G forces anyway)

The problem there is if it gets hacked then in the best case it's grounded and in the worst case it's now the enemies aircraft.

And humans can't be hacked?

These airframes will be around for decades. They’ll be retrofit to remove human crew when that becomes a viable option.

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