Scientists are teaching drones to hunt down human screams
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
> Researchers developed a drone-carried acoustics system to find people calling out for help
Quite a contrast!
That said, the verb phrase "hunt down" is an important part of the "color" that, if you were describing it to a computer you'd leave out.
Well, unless you're an anti-vaxer then I suppose they are identical in multiple ways.
My two examples are meant to be alternative ways to describe the vaccine rollout but one with the intent removed and replaced with a sensationalized headline. You could describe getting vaccinated as being cut, it isn't entirely incorrect, it's just extremely misleading.
As someone who has spent time in a combat unit, I can't come up with tactical or strategic advantages that this would create, even if you fully set morality aside. There are so many easier ways to suppress dissent or eliminate survivors that worrying about weaponizing this particular technology is like worrying about dropping toilets out of bombers; yea, you can kill people that way, but it's so impractical you have to ask if anyone is really going to try.
I was asking this as a serious question, in case I was missing something. But I still don't see it. This feels like it's so specialized that it'd be a dead end for anyone trying to weaponize it.
For second there I thought terminator was becoming real in my lifetime.
Or that military drones may be equipped with this sort of tech to find civilians/soldiers then deliver an explosive payload just for kicks.
Glad we are starting to use it for good. For now at least.
The sub-sub-headline: Researchers develop military tech to hunt down targets that have only been wounded!
https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/eco-citizen/topher-...
It picks up more than occasional backfires besides actual gunshots, which is connected to concerns about its use being a pretext for selective policing in minority communities (or even outright manufacturing evidence to support police narratives):
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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinehaskins1/police...
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“...a study of Chicago police data found that over a nearly 22-month period ending in mid-April, almost 90% of ShotSpotter alerts didn’t result in officers reporting evidence of shots fired or of any gun crime.” https://apnews.com/article/chicago-police-crime-shootings-be...
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https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/jun/19/pros-and-cons-gunshot-... (The series of “ifs” used in the police lieutenant's defense of the value of the system is...quite impressive.)
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Simmons was accused of firing the first shot and charged with the attempted murder of a police officer, among other offences. Recordings by ShotSpotter were used against Simmons at trial, but evidence surfaced that the service had initially categorized loud noises in his neighborhood as the sound of a helicopter overhead — until Rochester police notified the service that an officer-involved shooting had taken place. ShotSpotter would then change the number of gunshots that it had reportedly detected from three shots to four shots, and then five shots.
After spending 18 months in jail and eventually being cleared of attempted aggravated murder, aggravated assault of a police officer, and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, Simmons is now suing the city of Rochester, two police officers, a former police chief, and ShotSpotter. Matters were complicated when Paul Greene, the Forensic Services Manager of ShotSpotter, admitted in court that the audio file from the time of Simmons’ shooting was gone. Greene also admitted that unlocked or unencrypted ShotSpotter audio files can be altered by ShotSpotter employees or police.
https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/gun-violence-po...
How on earth is having a system that not onlt can be altered to fit police narratives but which actually is not an indictment of the system? Among the other issues...
> If 10% lead to arrests for gun crimes that might have otherwise been missed, then that's pretty good.
Yeah, its a system that’s problems are concrete, but benefits rest on a lot of optimistic “ifs”.
From the first cited source:
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But a study of the St. Louis Police Department found that while ShotSpotter increased the number of calls for service for gunfire, it did not actually reduce crime or result in many arrests.
Over 19,000 calls for service were activated by ShotSpotter over a decade. Out of these 19,000, only 13 arrests were "uniquely tied" to ShotSpotter — arrests that couldn't have happened without the technology.
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That's less than 0.1%, not 10%.
Never really used it, but from what I've heard (which is just comments on the internet) it's unreliable enough that it's not particularly useful.
Any machine or black box that law enforcement can use either as pretext for doing whatever they want, or as something to point to to absolve themselves of responsibility, has value.
I think you left out “negative social” before the last word there.
This is one of the main reasons why there is a debate about the use of silencers. And people who want to be able to use silencers have an agenda to make the technology seem less useful than it is.
Don't kid yourself, there's agendas on both sides, and a hefty chunk of law related to firearms accessories is nothing more than prosecutorial/political window dressing to provide ammo for throwing massive numbers of charges at defendant's to increase the likelihood an AG can secure a conviction through plea deal, or strip yet another citizen of a fundamental civil right.
Note how the involvement of a firearm in anything can double or triple the number of charges that can be levied against a person. It means anyone unfortunate enough to develop a passion for firearms as a hobby has an uphill battle to fight just to prove that by default "they didn't do anything wrong". Those same silencers also protect the hearing of those around a shooter as well. Add the ATF to the mix, and simply having tools and trying to modify a firearm for better ergonomics can land the unaware in hot water when the ATF finds out and make a determination you illegally converted something into something else, and they don't like it one bit.
The humble remote hole punch has become a favorite poster child for the more authoritarianly bent to convince people to part with Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.
I have no silencers/suppressors other than on previously mentioned equipment, and possess no firearms for which I'd be interested in acquiring any, but I did do a short stint wading through the regulatory more that is firearm regulation in the United States.
Abandon all hope, you who enter the domain where a string and a rifle can become constructive possession of a machine gun.
But in all seriousness, would this replace or augment current IR detection of survivals in natural disasters? Searching from high up might not be the most ideal position to search from - this could work well outfitted on a rover. In fact, I would love to see a tiny little rover that can crawl into spaces and search for survivors, sounds and body heat.
We asked to robots to maximize the number of screaming humans they found... it turns out that metric proved quite easy to game.
Taunt not the Clippy, for his will be the clarion call of your destruction.