Pretty much everything the military uses has a measure of EMP shielding. We've know about it's effects for over 50 years now.
Signal jamming is an obvious weak point - one that disappears as autonomy is increased. Distributed control would reduce this issue, (as in, have a single soldier/operator manage 10-15 units). Eventually, you remove human control entirely, and along with it, this issue.
Which, to my knowledge, are only currently generated using a nuclear weapon. You might be able to create one using solid state gear with enough time, R&D, and power.
> You could use signal jamming.
Machine intelligence frowns upon your silly attempts at jamming its uplinks. Predator drones and other autonomous, existing military kit already use high frequency satellite communications techniques that are essentially jam proof.
I understand that. My point was, there is no practical method yet to provide the energy required and appropriately direct EM energy at a target except through a crude weapon like an omnidirectional nuclear weapon
> "Which, to my knowledge, are only currently generated using a nuclear weapon. You might be able to create one using solid state gear with enough time, R&D, and power."
> "Machine intelligence frowns upon your silly attempts at jamming its uplinks. Predator drones and other autonomous, existing military kit already use high frequency satellite communications techniques that are essentially jam proof."
Your idea of jamming is too narrow. Think about it like this, even if it's mostly automated, these machines still get sent signals to inform them of changes to their mission. That signal can be blocked and/or modified. Even satellite links can be altered, either you hack the satellite system or you intercept the signal at a higher altitude than the receiver is operating in.
>Even satellite links can be altered, either you hack the satellite system or you intercept the signal at a higher altitude than the receiver is operating in.
Or, if the case of total war, you blow the freaking satellites out of space with missiles. Yes, I know space weapons systems are technically banned, but how long do you think a nation like the US, Russia, India, or China would put up with satellite controlled autonomous drones running roughshod over their sovereign territory before they just blow the satellites out of space?
Satellites can actually be destroyed using weapons that aren't in space. Back in 1985, the US had a F15 launch a missile which took out a satellite in orbit. China also recently destroyed a satellite with a ship-launched missile.
>Machine intelligence frowns upon your silly attempts at jamming its uplinks. Predator drones and other autonomous, existing military kit already use high frequency satellite communications techniques that are essentially jam proof.
American aeronautical engineers dispute this, pointing out that as is the case with the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper, and the Tomahawk, "GPS is not the primary navigation sensor for the RQ-170... The vehicle gets its flight path orders from an inertial navigation system".[20] Inertial navigation continues to be used on military aircraft despite the advent of GPS because GPS signal jamming and spoofing are relatively simple operations.
Actually, any use of radio frequency at all is retarded. Propagation's CAN be stopped.
You just haven't had access to that information, or you have, and are providing disinformation for someone.
Not necessarily, especially if their cheap enough (and the beautiful thing about software is that its marginal cost is 0.) Think of them like bullets or bombs. And then you've eliminated that possibility of defending against them.
The biggest weakness of drones is that they cannot make decisions themselves; they need input, communication channels.
The military advantage of putting autonomous AI on drones is so that they no longer need to communicate with home base. The purpose of the AI is to eliminate the weakness of communications being jammed. The requirement to "receive new instructions" is eliminated.
Then how do you coordinate attacks? Even elite military units, deep behind enemy lines, have the ability to receive new intel. You aren't going to build a swarm of robotic generals, each fighting their own war, with no communication between them.
You're not going to launch these things with the order to "go fight the war" and hope to update them on the specifics later.
You're going to launch them with the latest intelligence on board manually uploaded, for missions less than 12 hours in duration. It's like firing a missile - you don't need to recall it once you've hit the red button.
So - AI 1 and 2 - drop 2x 500lb bombs on target at 6759 5974 at 03:12 hours. Go.
They complete the mission and head back. Even better, you give them 4x 500lb bombs and they figure out themselves how much to drop to destroy the target.
Communication worries are overblown, you just have to design around them.
What if you want to call the mission off? Let's say the enemy gets a few key hostages, and holds them in this building. They'll be killed by their own side.
Revokable weapons are weak; irrevocable weapons are strong. It's the same logic as mutually assured destruction, and evolutionarily similar to blind rage.
FWIW I believe autonomous weapons are inevitable because drones cannot be used against technologically sophisticated enemies that can jam them. The hard requirement for continuous communication is exactly what autonomy is eliminating.
The enemy didn't necessarily break the Geneva convention.
Pulling the trigger far in advance of the resultant action increases the risk of disaster, disaster that could've been averted based on the richer dataset available closer to the scheduled time.
They didn't have to. We're just going to say they did anyway because they are evil bastards (TM) and we can't possibly be anything but the good guys.
This scenario is the exact same scenario as a current ballistic missile launch. There are no safeguards for those systems that could be intercepted and interfere with the use of the weapon.
Send more drones to kill your own drones? If the drones can be fed new instructions in the field, then the enemy can feed them fake instructions to shut down.
No it's not. You could use EMP. You could use signal jamming. Neither are lethal, both have the potential to be effective against autonomous weapons.