It is not largely capable of "thinking"
We are proactively destroying human society. And many people are rallying behind it VCs investing in killing machines.
Citizen's largely don't care, they are largely passive.
It sort of reminds me of Richard Feynman who claimed he was extremely depressed. After the use of the atomic bomb.
It was something very stupid for a so called genius to say.
You work on a mass murder tool, then complain that a mass murder tool you worked on was used for mass murder.
The people doing the most to actually improve material conditions in the third world are constantly poo-pooed by people who profit off these places remaining impoverished.
I think the NRxers are right here you need to go in there and crack skulls. Few will invest in long term skills if they aren't valuable. The simple fact: In these next 10 years Haiti will see more growth than the last 40 years, thanks in large part to this partnership.
It's a much larger deterrent
There certainly weren’t a lot fewer wars back when people had to physically stab each other with swords. Quite the opposite?
Wars of the gunpowder age have been far more bloody. Far more destructive to civilian life. Far more lasting damage to the environment.
Much less total death and dying as well, though. Battles were short and small scale until the Civil War (maybe the Napoleonic Wars prior? Debatable). The largest battles of history prior to the industrial revolution were in the thousands, 10s of thousands of people. Forces were usually broken and defeated or fled after brief engagements. Brutal in experience, but smaller in scale.
It was that perception of war as personal, intimate, chivalric, by old men that let to the peak atrocity period (PAP? Did I coin a term?) of ~1850-1950. WWI was really the first modern reckoning of industrialized, globalized war, that led to the staggering scale of suffering. Incomprehensible to the men that commanded it, as they were born and acculturated in pre-modern war era culture.
But then the epoch-defining tool of the atom came along, and war has gone back to smaller scale, focused, targeted, "precision".
So here we sit, straddling two eras again. Pre-drone and post drone. We have not fully reckoned with what the new era means. But it will come quickly, like most modern tool-culture cycles.
So I guess FARC didn't surrender? Where do you get this idea that American imperialism can't possibly work? And can I have some of what you're smoking?
The human that launched the missile is still responsible for it. Weapons that have autonomy are still given engagement parameters (e.g. limit target to certain geo bounds, engage between two certain timestamps). The humans that set those parameters and choose to deploy the weapon are responsible for what the autonomous weapon does.
wow, such an insight, how didn't they think about that before?
yeah, complaining about 1200 killings, without considering the rape/killings/displacement that would happen in their absence by Viv Ansamn
[0] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/haiti
You should read the comment that you replied to again. You're railing against a fact, not an opinion.
> Launched by Haitian law enforcement forces and private contractors working for Vectus Global between March 1, 2025, and Jan. 21, 2026, the strikes also injured at least 738 people, according to the organization’s report. At least 49 of the injured appeared to have no ties to gangs or other criminal groups.
The first paragraph made it sound like the majority were bystanders, while the second made it sound like it was 5%.
Maybe that is still unacceptable collateral damage, but it'd be nice if the article was more specific than "many" so we know what we are actually talking about here.
Mercenaries with drones, just great.
1 - Immediately share all information and intel with the public so as to spare any judicial accountability. 2 - Quit. 3 - Prepare to go to jail for the rest of your life. This is profoundly evil.
For example, I do in fact want to live in a world where only the bad guys have child soldiers, use human shields, deliberately target civilians, and abuse prisoners of war.
If the other guys have an army of killer robots and you don't, you are going to die.
If you work for an AI firm or drone outfit even loosely related to a security defense firm, here are your three options:
1 - Quit, salvage what remains of your dignity. 2 - Share all information you can as a whistleblower to media, the world, etc. 3 - Prepare to go to jail. This is profoundly evil.
Period.
throwaway5752•1h ago
to clarify: Erik Prince founded Blackwater, of the Nisour Square Massacre infamy in the GW Bush administration. He is deeply tied to Republican politics, mercenary work, and particularly the Trump administration. He is IPOing an autonomous lethal drone company, Swarmer, and his other company, Vectrus, is behind the events of this article.
logdahl•1h ago
daneel_w•1h ago
mentalgear•1h ago
Always that Black prefix, like something out of a bad action movie.
peddling-brink•1h ago
watwut•1h ago
TurdF3rguson•1h ago
bawolff•1h ago
In the books its not just that sauron uses it for evil, he also can use it to turn anyone else that uses it evil.
TurdF3rguson•51m ago
MidnightRider39•14m ago
However I heard that Thiels favourite book is the rewrite of LOTR from the perspective of Sauron, where Gandalf and the elves seek to destroy humanity and technology (at least that’s how I understood the gist, haven’t read it)
oefrha•8m ago
Btw I always wondered why I was seeing droves of Palantir swag on Stanford campus back in early 2010s. I wouldn’t wear something that has a 50%+ chance of being interpreted as evil.
akomtu•57m ago
jayd16•1h ago
itsthecourier•1h ago
carabiner•1h ago
bawolff•1h ago
I dont know what blackrock did to be evil. Seems like a pretty generic company that sells basically every type of stock.
vkou•26m ago
* People who think a cabal of reptilian globalists control the world.
* People who think that capitalism is an emergent system that is destroying our culture, social cohesion, and environment.
tekla•1h ago
All the worst companies seem to all be LOTR themed.
cjbgkagh•1h ago
jihadjihad•1h ago
And sadly the infamy continued into the prior Trump administration. In 2020 Trump pardoned all four employees who had been convicted in 2014.