when i see these so called innocent robot development videos i get more terrified with every one.
A WW II tank had a range of several hundred kilometers at best, and modern battle tanks sometimes less. Were looking at a future of swarm weapons that will have ranges measured in time, years and years vs the several hundred KM of current weapons, basically a operational capacity like a intelligent mine that can find its target anywhere on the globe. These are the box kites with engines that predate but become the WWI fighters of 1918 which are lethal killers. Imagine if the engine used in the Boeing X-51 became operational, robotic solar powered factory mother ships wait outside of international airspace and within hours of political hostility begin to manufacture the carriers and there mini swarm weapons cargo. Within seconds of a declaration of war are bombing and attacking coastal cities. If say LA was the target it would be attacked in less then 20 seconds of the declaration of war. All of this without even adding the ABC weapons
“Dark wings, dark words.” (Just don’t expect it to work in the dark.)
Well, not until the battery technology improves or the robot is made bigger, that is…
Raven not rated for operation on night’s plutonian shore. Very disappointed.
Look at the bright side. Once things calm down, there’ll be a lot of useful stuff to be either salvaged or bought cheap as surplus.
Do you like our owl?
It’s artificial?
Of course it is.
Must be expensive.
Very.
So the solar cells add ten watts. How many watts does it need to fly? Does the added weight/complexity of the solar cells justify their use, or are they mostly for show?
I think they got a successful six-minute run. So, in a way, could we consider it “becoming operational”?
Make it nuclear-powered. More reliable, higher power density.
You can also extract hydrogen and carbon dioxide from seawater, and react them together into hydrocarbons useful as fuels; the US Navy is experimenting with it and should be able to deploy the tech in few years. If they get an equivalent of JP-8+100LT, they will be able to power high-altitude hypersonic planes.
The parts of the flight devices can be printed from wire, using a plasma/laser torch.
For hypersonic engines, a nice trick is forming part of the nozzle from a shock wave in air.
Just thinking…
Solar-assisted–robo-ornithopter… One wild turkey could probably take it out of the air - unless it were actually a flying armadillo.
When it powers it’s self by ripping apart my compost I’ll be impressed
If it’s gotta a mute button I’ll buy five.
They aren’t the cheap seats; but you can get some impressively thin and light thin-film cells. Your basic polysilicon-sealed-in-glass probably wouldn’t even make it off the ground.
I, for one, would like to take this opportunity to welcome our new robot raven overlords.
Fly at nighttime?
Nevermore.
Monsanto’s crossed them with Octopods
We all kneel down and apologize for leaving our Overlords with such a compost deficient planet.
On the bright side the sea level is rising.
Oh, go on over to h+ magazine and see their dissent for a ban on autonomous weapons. Then maybe consider yourself very imaginative for thinking something that flies like TIM (the rubberbandy plastic sparrow) is going to put together the Kantai Collection base and a bird flu that finds Belgian blue bulls near you at the speed of soft data error, instead of doing the original Paris Air Show before they got all hard-mounting-point-crazy.
Only a dream. [narrator trope] Yes, mankind never stood a chance against the buttery-soft loafer and heirloom seed delivery industry. [/narrator]
Laser-3D-printing stuff from 8 miles out with naval or orbital hardware is some good stuff for the weekend, there! Internet cats are going to totally raid your bins with feather-waldo controlled locally sourced shiny birds.
Disappointments:
-Not 6-eyed (Teen Titans’) Raven with the levitation and inky unstoppable forces
-Intents language not evocative of namesakes
-Not a bit of flocking intelligence in evidence
-Snarky birds not macking and overtly looking sleek and solar powered
Thrills:
-Not trebling the cost of a new road someplace…no, wait…
-Room to be first to power robots and develop on carrion bird diet habits…and for iron-stomach horror/suspense audiences…and of course poop more desirable rainbows
-Looking to hit outside natural size distribution of ravens FTW
-Opportunity to fill out Mediterranean Diet of migratory birds with most delicious servos, solar panels, so far
I think the weapons should decide weather they should be autonomous or not.
Next, add a dive-bomb capability, software torso recognition and heart identification, and a pair of sharpened prongs charged to 50,000 volts, and/or CS/VX gas dispensers, and we DoD will take 100,000 units
