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Comment by meowkit | Hacker News Reader

Its a bit harder to control how much collateral damage occurs with A2G missiles. Put a rifle on a humanoid robot or small explosive on a drone like in Slaughterbots and that’s much more terrifying.

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It isn't, really, because you can at least hope to avoid the slaughterbot. You can't escape that which you can't see. A high-altitude UAV is the nightmare, whether it shoots missiles or bullets. We're just used to them (but not being a target of them), so it doesn't feel so scary as imaginary close combat with a robot.

(To this day I remember this one thing about US drone strikes in Pakistan I read in an article many years ago: the people living there became literally afraid of the blue sky - as the drone strikes tended to happen during good weather. That's terror.)

That's a problem. People are not terrified of AGM carrying stealth drones, but they should be because they are already here and in use around the world. Nothing can stop it, no tank, aircraft, rocket, armor. Probably the only realistic defense is an iron dome type system to shoot the missile down. The US deployed a hellfire AGM with retractable swords instead of explosives they are so confident they can land it on a single person or vehicle.

Biped cyborg killer is just not a realistic weapon. The slaughterbot attack on Maduro in 2018 shows that technology is not very mature yet.

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