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I'm not worried about battlefields in the "stabby the robot" scenario. I'm worried about unprepared civilians being exsanguinated en masse by a fleet of drones.

The scary scenario as far as I'm concerned, is mass genocide based on some characteristic. 10k drones wiping out 100k civilians who are identifiable based on location, skin color, clothing or some other measure. It's a scenario that has seemed vaguely plausible to me for several years now.

I refer to it as "stabby the robot" because drones wielding blades or other means of exsanguination do not run out of ammo and have little limitations on how much they can achieve their goals(other than powering themselves).



Exactly, and imagine them in the hands of terrorists. Some pretty awful outcomes are becoming possible.


Simple drone that goes boom on contact seems much easier to build that one that can repeatedly attack with a melee weapon.


Right but the melee weapon can potentially disable 10x as many targets as one that explodes.




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