I’ve enjoyed Mark Rober’s videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn’t sitting right with me
The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU
In it, he talks about a few techniques for how to take down “bad guy drones”, the problems with each, and then shows off the drone tech by Anduril as a solution.
Anduril aims to sell the U.S. Department of Defense technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril’s major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.
In the video, the Anduril product is a heavy drone that uses kinetic energy to destroy other drones (by flying into them). Quoting the person in the video:
imagine a children’s bowling ball thrown at twice as fast as a major league baseball fastball, that’s what it’s like getting hit by Anvil
This technology is scary for obvious reasons, especially in the wrong hands. What I also don’t like is how Mark Rober’s content is aimed at children, and this video includes a large segment advertising the children’s products he is selling. Despite that, he is promoting military technology with serious ethical implications.
There’s even a section in the video where they show off the Roadrunner, compare it against the patriot missiles, and loosely tie it in to defending against drones. While the Anvil could be used to hurt people, at least it is designed for small flying drones. The Roadrunner is not:
The Roadrunner is a 6 ft (1.8 m)-long twin turbojet-powered delta-winged craft capable of high subsonic speeds and extreme maneuverability. Company officials describe it as somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile. The basic version can be fitted with modular payloads such as intelligence and reconnaissance sensors. The Roadrunner-M has an explosive warhead to intercept UAS, cruise missiles, and manned aircraft.
That’s an absolutely awful video. Loud, obnoxious, disingenuous and not even remotely as funny, informative, comprehensive, or clever as the idiot who made it thinks it is. It’s valueless content made to be ingested and served up by an algorithm.
Is it just me, or does that discussion of the various ways to counter drones, kinda miss the obvious of just shooting them with a conventional gun?
Those fpv drones are almost invisible until they’re about 5 m out and then they hit you within about half a second. It’s almost impossible to describe the speed maneuverability they have, and combined with their tiny size it’s very hard to even see them, let alone hit them.
You’d think that a bot could target it, but some drones are just super agile
Not saying they’d dodge a bullet or shell, just saying that they’re hard to aim at
If you can target them with a laser though, why would a gun be much different? I know there’s dramatically more travel time, but bullets are still extremely fast, and even if one shot misses, something like a machinegun with a computerized control system seems like it ought to hit the thing before too long? Maybe the risk of missed shots causing harm might be too high for populated areas?
The issue is drone speed. They can go 200mph+ in less than 4 sec. If they’re trained to outmaneuver incoming ammunition/lasers then I’d say good luck hitting one. It’s very much like trying to swat a fly. Not impossible but difficult enough.
I suppose that depending on the location you might not want to have stray bullets landing at random, also depending on the size and the speed of the drone it might be hard to target.
We’ve had that technology since the 70’s, it’s called the Phalanx system and it automatically defends naval vessels against incoming missiles.
To do this the Phalanx fires 4,500 rounds per minute. While it only has to fire for 1-3 seconds per incoming object, that’s still an ungodly number of rounds, each one about the length of your hand.
To do the same with a human operated firearm would take such a degree of luck that you may as well pray for the incoming drone to get struck by lightning.
I didn’t really think human operated, I was imagining something pretty much exactly like phalanx, but with a much smaller caliber and turret size owing to the small size of drones. Like a phalanx type software controller mounted to a small turret with a small caliber machinegun or automatic shotgun type weapon.
There are enormous downsides including mechanical reliability and weight.
Raytheon is already selling a system that assists a human operator in drone targeting, then knocks them out with a laser emitter. The whole thing fits on the back of a Polaris off-road vehicle and runs on electricity. That means the ammo is a gallon or two of fuel.
Don’t forget that projectiles have to obey the laws of gravity. Firing a couple hundred rounds over a stadium in a busy city doesn’t seem like a great idea
You’re approaching the issue incorrectly, because you’re omitting cost.
For example: Russia is using suicide drones that cost a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each.
It’s not economically(or logistically) viable to fire a few hundred rounds of ammunition at every drone.
Firing a several thousand dollars worth of bullets at a missile works because the missile is at least several hundred thousand.
You’re on the right track but comparing the wrong things. It’s cost of the rounds vs the cost of not stopping the incoming weapon (ie lives and damages), not vs the cost of the incoming weapon.
Eh, the comparison is valid when the opponent can throw ten to upwards of several thousand drones at you for the cost of one countermeasure.
That’s why Raytheon developed a laser based anti-drone system. Electricity is cheaper than bullets.
It’s a lot less portable, though.
Fits on a pickup truck.
https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/lasers
Huh, only 10 kW? I thought it would be more. If it’s got a big bed, you could put the generator right there too. I don’t know how much electricity a consumer pickup engine provides, but it’s probably not that much. A quick Google suggests consumer bed outlets are about 400 W.
That works out on the water, since the thousands of bullets that missed fall “harmlessly” into the ocean. On land, we have to think about all the bullets that miss too.
Raytheon has been making a few improvements since the 70’s, like getting rid of the bullets.
https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/lasers
Been tried quite a bit now in the Russo-Ukrainian theater. Not as easy as it sounds.
You shoot much?
I have to think no because then you’d know how difficult it is to hit a stationary target and then be able to extrapolate that to one that moves and changes direction on a dime in 3 dimensions.
Then you’d also consider what’s happening to the projectiles that inevitably miss even in a computerized targeting system.
Admittedly not, no. I was making the assumption, possibly a naive one, that a computer should be capable of understanding the physics behind bullet trajectories well enough to shoot accurately even if the target is mobile.
You should check out some videos of CIWS (Close In Weapon Systems) in action. They’re systems designed to shoot down projectiles like missiles and mortar rounds (as well as targeting small vehicles and planes). The sheer number of rounds they spray to take out a target that is moving on a single ballistic trajectory is crazy.
The closest thing I know of to what you’re talking about would be hard-kill APS (Active Protection Systems). These are systems designed to protect vehicles like tanks from incoming rounds and missiles. Using radar and optical sensors, they can detect a round and predict whether or not it’s going to hit the vehicle and respond in nanoseconds, firing an explosive back at a target traveling 1-2km per second. However, this isn’t like shooting a bullet out of the air with another bullet. It’s more like chucking a grenade at a missile to either deflect it or destroy enough of it that the pieces (still going 1-2km/s) don’t damage the vehicle.
But both of these systems are designed mainly for destroying targets on a ballistic trajectory. When you throw drones into the mix, now you have a target that can react to your reaction. With slower moving drones like the helicopter ones, that’s easy enough. But what about a drone that’s moving at mach 2 and capable of sustaining 20g’s, like a missile. Now you’re talking about basically firing missiles at missiles, which has proven to be very difficult before a missile has spent its fuel and is coasting towards its target on its final ballistic trajectory.
At range sure, nearby though an open choke shotgun would be pretty viable. Skeet shooting has been a thing for a while and unless it can change direction between the trigger and the pellets reaching it the drone’s likely at least impaired.
How nearby is nearby though? And, in the context of the proposed use case for defending a crowded stadium in a populated area, does this put people down range as well that could also be impaired by the pellets?
The optimal sweet spot is probably like 40 meters or something, within 20 or 10 meters and the drone is probably in range to drop a grenade or explode, and becomes much harder to hit because it’s capable of making much quicker direction changes relative to where you’re standing even as it presents a larger target to you as a consequence of being closer, and a whole lot farther out, and birdshot can’t really cut it.
Edit: Oh I was also gonna say, for indoor spaces, it’d maybe be not a good idea even just for hearing protection, but barring that, you could just opt for something lower velocity which you’d probably pack for this occasion if you’re defending a set location, and then just load what you need in like 2 seconds. I imagine most drones are going to be flying around above head height anyways, so the main worry would be debris and falloff. You can’t prevent debris from the drone really unless you have a net drone or something, and the falloff on the backend of a lower velocity or frangible birdshot with less mass is probably not super consequential except maybe in the case of eye protection. Some sort of ceramic bullet or maybe even steel bbs would probably work without doing too much damage. More than a drone, anyways. It’s not as though a drone that rams into another drone is a particularly safe thing, in any case.
Crowded spaces it’s a problem, I was more talking to notion of just plain shooting them rather than a use case. A rifle would be dang near impossible, but a scattered spray, you really only need to stop one prop and it’s probably on the ground for a standard 4 prop deal. At least mine got real screwy when a blade split mid flight.
Skeet/trap shooting was designed around duck hunting. Ducks aren’t particularly acrobatic flyers. Even fat, heavy quadcopters like off the shelf DJI stuff can do some impressive maneuvers, and purpose built racing quads are wicked. If the operator tries a little to do some evasive maneuvers, or the autopilot has it programmed in, it’s going to be very hard to shoot down.
Shotguns also aren’t common on the battlefield. They’re not that useful for typical army engagement ranges. Navy vessels do use them for boarding actions, but you usually won’t find them in armies.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
One of the use cases is it flying around a packed stadium. Without the drone standing rather still so you can get under and shoot right up at it, there’s no clear shot.
This just in: Palmer Luckey is a piece of shit. This is what you bought when you paid for the Oculus Rift.
Somehow I already knew this was Anduril.
What’s wrong with Palmer Lucket. I don’t have much research on him but I believe Oculus was better before he sold out to Facebook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anduril_Industries
It was founded in 2017 by inventor Palmer Luckey with investors and founders associated with Palantir and SpaceX. Anduril aims to sell the U.S. Department of Defense technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril’s major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.
This was months after he left Facebook. He left in March 2017 and opened Anduril in June 2017.
Point one against him was that he sold Oculus to Facebook. Point two is that he used his earnings from Oculus/Facebook to start a military hardware company with focus on autonomous weapons.
In other words, everyone who paid money to support Oculus ended up supporting this. This is what the profits of Oculus Rift bought: violent weaponry with more concern for profit than humanity. Great job, VR gamers!
Like seriously, though. If I buy a video game console, I shouldn’t have to be concerned the profits will be used to make weapons.
While I don’t want to support weapons, blaming people that bought the vr headset in the past for what he would do with the money after the sale is a very bad take. You can’t blame them for not knowing the future.
Also the argument itself doesn’t make much sense and can be strawmaned to “you pay taxes, therefore you are a complicit in the murders of your military, therefore you are a bad person”.
All of the people here saying Backyard Scientist is better should check out his latest video.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/JSm7Tp8iv3o?si=Fy6_mO2rzPa0D8ct
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Weird topic for a channel aimed at children
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I also had this uneasy feeling watching the video. It certainly felt a bit like a cog in the military industrial machine. While the actual content of the video wasn’t exactly bad in my opinion, I don’t know how I feel about pitching anti-terror or war machines to children through the lens of, “Engineering is cool!” That said, there are many more examples of that pitch out in the world in other forms. I do think Mark could be more careful especially when he is directly promoting a company in the defense industry.
Unfortunately engineering and military have a huge overlap in the US. It’s kind of inescapable. I found out recently that Destin from Smarter Every Day also worked for a weapons manufacturer before starting YouTube. These people just don’t want to think about the fact that they probably have blood on their hands.
I don’t think Destin’s ever been real shy about his connections. Huntsville is basically nothing but NASA and missile companies, and he did a multi-part series where he lived on an active US Navy sub for two days.
There’s a difference between showing off a technological marvel like a nuclear submarine and not really focusing on its applications as a weapon, versus showing off a weapon and being like “it’s so cool to kill ‘bad guys’ with this stuff”
And yeah he probably hasn’t been shy about it, I don’t watch his videos religiously. I found out during his excellent talk on the Artemis program. IIRC, he mentioned he helped design missile countermeasures, which is pretty tame as military industrial complex goes, but it’s still participating in the amelioration of killing machines, which doesn’t sit right with me. And he talked about it so nonchalantly, like he hadn’t considered that the people at the end of the barrel of the weapons he was helping design obviously were the “bad guys”
I still have a ton of respect for the guy and his educational outreach work, and I don’t hold it against him, I just don’t get how someone could sleep at night knowing that they helped make weapons more efficient at killing people.
I am well aware of this overlap and it doesn’t come as a surprise. I perhaps wish more of these creators acknowledged the military industrial complex and addressed what it means for their content and for the world of engineering.
He worked for the military as a missile test engineer, even did an interview with a four star general. The general described the video he was making (the interview i mean) as a weapon
Damn, never saw that. At least the general was forthcoming about why they do that sort of outreach.
If you take a look into the fitness bubble on YouTube you will see military propaganda too. They’re often competing against real soldiers/SEALS/whatever to demonstrate how well prepared they’re are in the case of war. Back in the subject of engineering, William Osman was also sponsored by the Navy (I think) one time.
The US navy did a campaign a few years ago that paid a bunch of youtubers across a wide range of video genres.
Looking from outside the US, it appears pretty weird how deeply ingrained in America’s mindset the military is.
The US military spends a shitload of money to be deeply ingrained.
I don’t know how I feel about pitching anti-terror or war machines to children through the lens of, “Engineering is cool!” That said, there are many more examples of that pitch out in the world in other forms.
Kids have been sold military toys since forever. GI Joe, tin soldiers, toy guns, toy armor and swords, model kits of tanks and fighter aircraft…
Kids love to fight, adults realise there are better solutions.
Also a 5mn ad break to sell his kit felt much too long.
It’s like 1/3 of the video.
sponsor block would like to introduce itself
I think these are not blocked by default by sponsor block because it’s an ad for the creator’s products.
But anyway it’s far too long.
Felt like a LTT video…
That’s his videos now. Get you to watch them to hype Crunch Labs.
This, I think, is more a symptom of YouTube no longer supporting creators. Most every big channel is looking to alternate income sources. YouTube ad revenue and sponsor inserts aren’t good enough.
Thing is, I wouldn’t mind it if channels could self-fund by things like this, but it’s being done on top of all the ads, not replacing them.
It does seem interesting though. I was thinking of getting one for my sister but I believe the price deterred me.
Some children may grow to be the “bad guys” making and employing the “bad guy drones”, so it may be useful for them. War is part of life.
But if you want a certain kind of atmosphere, then I wouldn’t.
I think he may have soul doubt.
I also was not happy about the video.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I had a great interest in war when I was a boy. Now as an adult, I’d rather have Mark explaining things to kids than anyone else they might seek out.
Sure, and I went through the video looking for some nuanced explanation of the technology, the risks, and what safeguards were being put in place. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any, and the cheerful music throughout the video seems to be promoting the content more than anything else.
I find that there are other engineering channels that discuss technologies while focussing on the technology itself, both the good and the bad. I’m not opposed to such content being accessible to children, but the way this video goes about it did not sit right with me
If it’s military tech, then the finer details are likely not part of the public domain. Anything that could be used to understand or develop a way to counteract the weapon more effectively, or sometimes even just understand its precise capabilities, would be secret.
It’s understandable that it does not sit well, I think that’s healthy. War is hell.
I had to stop watching his videos because I can’t stand his overly enthusiastic personality.
I watched it with my kids and felt uncomfortable. This sort of video is not the same as elephants toothpaste.
I don’t suffer through rober videos so my kids can now worry people want to drop bombs on them at a stadium.
Thanks mark.
While I’m not linking to an external article, I’m hoping that my write-up within the post can still fit with the intent of this community :)
Maybe I’ve watched too much Black Mirror, but this video felt too similar to the tech demos at the start of a sci-fi thriller. In fact, it made me think of the Slaughterbots short film from 2017.
Two relevant points from that video:
-
The person in the tech demo for the drones also uses language such as “bad guys”
-
The address at the end:
This short film is more than just speculation. It shows the results of integrating and miniaturizing technologies that we already have. I’m Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at Berkeley. I’ve worked in AI for more than 35 years. It’s potential to benefit humanity is enormous, even in defense. But allowing machines to choose to kill humans will be devastating to our security and freedom. Thousands of my fellow researchers agree we have an opportunity to prevent the future you just saw, but the window to act is closing fast.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Sci-Fi Short Film “Slaughterbots” | DUST (piped.video)
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I made a nightmare after watching this short.
I mean what’s being shown here is effectively “how do you stop something like a slaughter bot or a ‘terrorist bomb bot’?”
I thought it was a neat video … We need people thinking about these problems.
-
I was not expecting this amount of hate over this video when I clicked on this post. The video is… normal? I don’t see issues? This whole thread seems oddly anti-military, anti-tech, and anti-Mark Rober. Like, what, is this tech going to be used to murder children more effectively than bombing a school? Even if it is, why is Mark Rober at fault and actually a phony who’s just shelling out for fame/cash? I’m genuinely curious what I’m missing here.
I didnt hate the video when I watched it, but Mark’s videos are heavily aimed at family friendly vibes, and this video is heavily centered around domestic terrorism, even though it family friendly dances around actually using the term. Which is a weird vibe
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Lemmy is slipping into a weird form of pacifism where they’re really hype about certain types of violence (punch a nazi, execute billionaires, etc) but also hate democracies working together to defend against attack because they see government as a nebulous evil and they’d rather people die than admit their edgy ideology is overly simplistic.
And yes I know the west has been involved in bad wars predicated on lies, the west isn’t the only place where people lie and do awful things for personal power and wealth, democracy isn’t perfect but it’s a work in progress best effort to work on making things better and it’s actually working pretty well really all things considered. I certainly think having tools to defend it against attack is a sensible and good thing especially something as elegant and accurate as just smashing attacking drones with percussive force. Far less likelihood of civilian casualties or ecological damage.
But the West isn’t a work in progress. We actively support genocide. We are the baddies that live on the backs of the rest of the world. We currently do this. Actively.
That’s such a simplistic and idealistic world view, you really think the rest of the world would just be a utopia of mutual love and respect if it weren’t for the existence of the evil race?
People the world over are all just human there are lovely Americans, lovely Arabs, lovely Chinese and Japanese and Ghanaian… however there are also greedy and manipulative people in all these places, people who will hurt others to get in a position of power - this is a reality of life, things are complex and sometimes interests and established beliefs clash leafing to conflict. This happens everywhere all through history.
The world is work in progress, its a lot if hugely difficult challenges many which come with added surprises and difficulties and unintended consequences.
It’s simply, propaganda. The issue with its audience is they are too young to realise they are being sold the next gen of weapons and it’s being promoted in a positive light. If you don’t understand why that is wrong then do a quick moral check in yourself.
You do realize that it’s good to give information about weapons to people who’ll be targeted by them the most?
Education in new reality of war is as important as any other.
And a sword is definitely a positive thing when many other people already have swords and you are choosing whether to have one.
Are you thinking the average person is going to be buying a jet drone cannon?
What use is the information in this case?
To me it can be summed up as: Lazers can be defeated (more like we are not willing to leave our best lazer tech lying around)
Signal blocking can be defeated
So we’ve resorted to flying bricks to defeat YOUR drones, don’t even think of using them.
Oh and just remember they are presenting them in a “drone travels up” way…
But they could do the exact opposite to an “object” on the ground. (A highly deadly “penny off the empire state”)
Maybe, but defense tech is cool.
Tru dat
defense tech is cool
“Defense” is mostly doublespeak since this tech will be used to attack and murder brown people in the other side of the world
The vortex cannon was shot directly at the youtubers in this video and they were fine. The attack drone is designed to take out other drones. What here is going to be used to kill humans exactly? Did you watch the video?
I wasn’t refering to the video. “Defense” tech is obviously a much larget topic than the video itself.
“this tech”, to me, implied a connection to the subject at hand.
I meant “defense tech” as “this tech”. Might not be accurate grammatically, I’m not a native English speaker
The drone hovers and goes down instead of up. A 200 mile an hour brick that if used right could go for multiple targets before failure.
I mean, yeah, you can modify most military tech to target humans.
There is no modify, only a down button, I suppose lazers are pretty effective but they are banned right? And EMP? I think I can survive that but I’m sure someone will be along to tell me I won’t.
I’ve pointed out that they are weapons and being presented in a friendly way, that’s all, why argue when you asked the question?
This kind of thing happens a lot. Something “negative” comes up about a popular person and everyone comes crawling out of the wood work about how they “knew all along” and “this person really is such a horrible person” and “on my god how could they do this?”
I’m probably going to regret the few comments I’ve made in this thread … but yeah, I really don’t think that video was that bad. It shows off how engineering can be applied to defending from possible future attacks. Maybe someone could use this offensively and “promotes the military industrial complex” but I think a bullet or a bomb is a lot more economical than “anvil” and “anvil” is something folks could potentially see in real life in civilian defense applications.
I’d personally love to see more people taking an interest and inspiration from counter weapons systems rather than the mentality of “the best defense is a good offense.” Not because I want to see more war, but because I think we’ve created some really nasty weapons and the shield and castle have long been out classed… People should be able to protect themselves.
Mostly I just hate when very obviously sponsored videos don’t declare their sponsorships. The entire first half of this like, 15 minute video is an ad, and then the rest of the content is made by like 3 other people. The thing he did was a big dart launcher. Now sure, that’s probably just for fun, it’s a scaled up version of the science kit he’s selling, it’s probably laudable that he didn’t want to show up his co-stars or whatever, but this is a video that has no content and basically no educational value. It’s trash, basically, it just has science education skin on.
Veritasium has done a similar thing a couple times, like his video on the autonomous cars. Very clearly a sponsorship, I think he only says so at the very end of the video, he totally glosses over any problems or downsides the technology has and speaks glowingly of it the whole time, paycheck please, next video, credibility is basically totally shot. I dunno, when I was a kid, magazines like popular science sold me on shit like the hyperloop. I wish they had been as forward thinking and hyped about normal trains, instead. Especially considering how many people have probably fallen for similar garbage like this due to that kind of stuff.
