I’ve enjoyed Mark Rober’s videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn’t sitting right with me
The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU
In it, he talks about a few techniques for how to take down “bad guy drones”, the problems with each, and then shows off the drone tech by Anduril as a solution.
Anduril aims to sell the U.S. Department of Defense technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril’s major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.
In the video, the Anduril product is a heavy drone that uses kinetic energy to destroy other drones (by flying into them). Quoting the person in the video:
imagine a children’s bowling ball thrown at twice as fast as a major league baseball fastball, that’s what it’s like getting hit by Anvil
This technology is scary for obvious reasons, especially in the wrong hands. What I also don’t like is how Mark Rober’s content is aimed at children, and this video includes a large segment advertising the children’s products he is selling. Despite that, he is promoting military technology with serious ethical implications.
There’s even a section in the video where they show off the Roadrunner, compare it against the patriot missiles, and loosely tie it in to defending against drones. While the Anvil could be used to hurt people, at least it is designed for small flying drones. The Roadrunner is not:
The Roadrunner is a 6 ft (1.8 m)-long twin turbojet-powered delta-winged craft capable of high subsonic speeds and extreme maneuverability. Company officials describe it as somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile. The basic version can be fitted with modular payloads such as intelligence and reconnaissance sensors. The Roadrunner-M has an explosive warhead to intercept UAS, cruise missiles, and manned aircraft.
There are a number of articles regarding this both from US and Ukrainian news sources. Here is one of the quick search results. Also, Ukraine has found the most success with modified, Chinese made, off the shelf DJI drones and regular consumer grade Chinese parts. I saw another article that said that Ukraine’s aim is to crank out about 2000 drones a day using these parts.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-american-drones-failed-to-turn-the-tide-in-ukraine/ar-BB1lmFXr
That’s just because they’re much cheaper, actual American drones are much more capable but they can’t afford them
Honestly its why the US manufacturing “Renaissance” (I’ll believe it when we see it) is so focused on hyper automation. We can force ethicnic groups into forced labour at the scale the CCP can nor can we force working conditions down the same with their anti union laws (and that is saying something US union laws are horribly biased towards employers).