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Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, this is where robotics is going to end up. We already have drones being used in warfare. Humanoids are next.

Won't be surprised to see hundreds of thousands of humanoid robots strapped up with explosives running to their target or some of them flying to their target with drones attached.

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I don't see bipedal murderbots being commonplace - they're a lot slower than 4-legged "Big Dogs". I think that the Ukraine war has shown that "slaughterbots" are far more likely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU

bipedal murderbots... not yet... I think advanced exoskeletons will be there first. They are already testing basic ones in the field:

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-exoskeleton-test-bat...

That may be true but doesn't matter. The fact that weapons will exist and even the fact that they must exist, and even the fact that you benefit from them existing, none of that means you are obligated to work on or with them yourself.

Cakes exist and I even like them, and I do not choose to work at a bakery.

Why would you build a very expensive bipedal robot to suicide bomb someone, when as you note, a very cheap flying drone could do the same thing? (and more over: already is, this is literally how drones are used in Ukraine).

Which of course leads to point 2: it's very easy to take a moral stance on weapons when you don't think you're in any danger, nor going to be doing any of the fighting otherwise.

Why: bipedal maybe not, but non-flying can usually carry more.

You think the US doesn't have enough weapons? Perhaps he thought that the weapons were likely to be used in aggression rather than defense?

Why would they have to be killer robots strapped with explosives? If we have highly capable semi-autonomous robots they could be non-lethal with no risk of life to their owners. It upends the entire paradigm of kill-or-be-killed warfare.

Rather than blowing up a school full of little girls, you could deploy a swarm of thousands of fast-moving cat-sized robots armed with tasers and bolas to identify and capture targeted enemy leaders.

Something like the robot from interstellar is probably more likely.

All the drone warfare developments remind me of the introduction of tanks during the first world war and perfected by the second world war. In the space of a few years they changed warfare. Then planes changed warfare again. Now drones. Makes you wonder what the next thing will be

Well humanoid / non-flying robotic weapons are already being used, and have been for a while. e.g. Zelenskyy https://x.com/KaterynaLis/status/2043827043863863404?s=20 talking about their successful use recently.

He’s not talking about humanoid robots. He’s talking about tracked and wheeled weapons platforms that are essentially small RC tanks.

Yet there are also many civil uses for drones, and I can totally understand the desire to involved only with the civil side of robotics.

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