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.
I think fear is fairly subjective, and to me these are scarier than bombs and guns. Bombs have a blast radius and bullets don’t stop after they hit their target, which means collateral damage has to be considered before using these. If you don’t have to worry about that because you’re going to just drop an anvil on someone’s head it would make it that much easier to order someone’s death.
Like yeah you’re probably not going to see any mass killings with these drones, but it certainly makes individual targeted killings easier.
Name one situation where this device makes killing someone easier than it already is.
You think that this device is considered less lethal than the knee that killed George Floyd?
Do you think the police officers who shot a civilian in the back several times or who shot a man in his car when he told them that he had a licensed firearm in the glove compartment were thinking rationally enough to be worried about collateral damage?
These drones are too expensive and unwieldy to be used in situations like that, so they could only be used in a premeditated killing. So let’s check these out:
A civilian wouldn’t use them, because attaching a bomb to an off the shelve drone is much cheaper, and you can buy everything you need without raising eyebrows.
When the government kills one of their citizens they don’t kill them on the spot. They put them on death row for years, kill them with an injection and then watch John Oliver make an episode on the people and companies that were involved.
When they kill people in other countries collateral damage is not really holding them back. And also: they already use missiles with blades instead of explosives.
I really can’t imagine a situation where these drones would make things worse than they already are.