A senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry told New Scientist that a test took place two years ago involving fully autonomous drones set to destroy anything in a given area, with confirmed casualties
This isn’t speculation about the future, this stuff has been going on for decades. This is the culmination of armed UAV strikes in 2002; this is the Patriot Act and the war on terror. We have been experiencing this. What we’re just witnessing now is the tipping point taking us past the point of no return.
Drones cheap enough to swarm; bioidentification advanced enough to ID crowds of dissidents; computer imaging refined over decades; drones being deployed as “public safety first responders”; live fire conflicts brought to a standstill by even the most rudimentary combat drones; advertising and big tech perfecting digital fingerprinting over decades; legislation being pushed to require OS-level user ID; mandated surveillance in new cars & ALPRs; restrictions on 3D printers…
Despite the show of ignorance, every state actor has known where the wind is blowing for a long time. They know that the pendulum for disruptive tech is swinging in the direction of accessibility for the public, and they’ve gotten out faaar ahead of that.
We’re not talking about wiretaps and secret police acting on human intel. We’re into automated surveillance tech feeding directly into pre-crime hueristics agencies where an instant and proportional response can be dispatched. Despite how comforting it feels to be one of a hundred million in a crowd, your life and actions are trivial to quantify and track.
The only thing that caught people off guard was how effective hybrid warfare is, specifically at sowing discord. “Wait and see” is a sentiment 30+ years too late. Geopolitics & domestic surveillance are going into a deep existential gridlock, probably until climate collapse makes drone production unsustainable.
This isn’t speculation about the future, this stuff has been going on for decades. This is the culmination of armed UAV strikes in 2002; this is the Patriot Act and the war on terror. We have been experiencing this. What we’re just witnessing now is the tipping point taking us past the point of no return.
Drones cheap enough to swarm; bioidentification advanced enough to ID crowds of dissidents; computer imaging refined over decades; drones being deployed as “public safety first responders”; live fire conflicts brought to a standstill by even the most rudimentary combat drones; advertising and big tech perfecting digital fingerprinting over decades; legislation being pushed to require OS-level user ID; mandated surveillance in new cars & ALPRs; restrictions on 3D printers…
Despite the show of ignorance, every state actor has known where the wind is blowing for a long time. They know that the pendulum for disruptive tech is swinging in the direction of accessibility for the public, and they’ve gotten out faaar ahead of that.
We’re not talking about wiretaps and secret police acting on human intel. We’re into automated surveillance tech feeding directly into pre-crime hueristics agencies where an instant and proportional response can be dispatched. Despite how comforting it feels to be one of a hundred million in a crowd, your life and actions are trivial to quantify and track.
The only thing that caught people off guard was how effective hybrid warfare is, specifically at sowing discord. “Wait and see” is a sentiment 30+ years too late. Geopolitics & domestic surveillance are going into a deep existential gridlock, probably until climate collapse makes drone production unsustainable.