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Comment by swiley | Hacker News Reader

Commodity drown with high powered laser for killing things based on image recognition sounds like sci-fi dystopia.

True, but it seems less dystopian than soaking vast fields with millions of pounds of neurotoxins, like we do today.

Yeah, I imagine massive overuse on "pest" species. Mosquito eradication will be a high priority for such technology, but there will be people who modify it to eradicate everything that flies or crawls. Everything smaller than a cat, if they could.

I think lasers for killing large animals (including us) will be prohibitively expensive for a long time to come, fingers crossed.

Don't worry. The robots can use machine guns like the rest of us.

Bill Gates was already involved in a startup to radar identify and kill mosquitos with lasers . . . guess it did not go well.

It resulted in a prototype that apparently cost $50 per unit, but no retail product yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

Are there massive amounts of retail products in, say, Africa?

Yes, Africa's retail market was worth US$1.4tn in 2015.[1]

1. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/africas...

Unfortunately, you don't need that much power to permanently blind a human.

for that matter; microwaves cook us from the inside out at 100+ meters, and don't require very good aim.

I know a lot of farmers that would respond very well to having "laser weed killer" as a product. I get the feeling the video feed would be amazing. Throw in pest killing and you own the market.

Although I keep thinking the movie Runaway (1984) is going to be a much truer representation of reality than I would like.

Just don't step on the field and you won't be mistaken for a rat and be zapped.

All roads lead to Skynet, some less obvious than others.

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