this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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The US Air Force wants $5.8 billion to build 1,000 AI-driven unmanned combat aircraft, possibly more, as part of its next generation air dominance initiative (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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The US Air Force wants $5.8 billion to build 1,000 AI-driven unmanned combat aircraft, possibly more, as part of its next generation air dominance initiative::The unmanned aircraft are ideal for suicide missions, the Air Force says. Human rights advocates call the autonomous lethal weapons "slaughterbots."

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (15 children)

$5.8 billion for a thousand combat drones? That's incredibly cheap, especially since the implication is that this includes amortized R&D costs and the per-unit cost will eventually be even lower.

As for "slaughterbots" - I'm not sure why some people are inclined to trust human soldiers more than machines. Humans don't exactly have the best track record for minimizing violence...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

6 million dollars apiece is cheap?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The F35 costs about 80 million and they sell like hotcakes. Yes, 6 million is cheap.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh okay. I didn't realize that. Wow.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Every bolt and river has to have its entire history accounted for in case it fails

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

F35A is now down to about $70 million/piece now, which further demonstrates the point of costs coming down with mass production I think.

It originally was more like $150 million.

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