HackerTube.dev

Slaughterbots

Stop Autonomous Weapons · 3.9M views · 2017-11-12 · 7:48

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Slaughterbots is a fictional short film, backed by Stuart Russell, depicting swarms of cheap autonomous drones that use facial recognition to assassinate targets. It was made to argue for banning autonomous weapons.

On Hacker News

HN invokes it as the standard reference whenever drone swarms, autonomous weapons or military AI come up in the news.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2018–2026

Topics

Search by tags

What people said

malloryerik · 2018-08 · Strong recommendation

Can drones be stopped? They have the potential to wage campaigns of automated political violence. I see companies trying to protect against them, like Dedrone [1] -- how effective are these? I imagine most here have seen it, but if not, you must see the slaughterbots video. [2] [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
jtsiskin · 2020-12 · Recommendation

This brings to mind a great video which I've posted here a few times: [VIDEO] What happens when technology progresses so much that anyone can make a swarm of killer drones? Will politicians no longer be able to go out in public? What about a distant future, when enriching uranium can be done in your garage for cheap...

Read the original HN comment ↗
lwneal · 2020-01 · Recommendation

The substantive part of this conversation comes about 35 minutes in, when Allen describes the DoD's five AI ethics principles: that any deployed AI systems must be "Responsible, Equitable, Traceable, Reliable, and Governable." [1]. I think "Responsible" raises some hard questions. Today, any weapons use by a robot might require a responsible human operator to first (remotely) pull the trigger. But what if an adversary allows their robots to fire without waiting for human permission? The first side to do so would gain a critical advantage, and we cannot have an autonomy gap. Some have raised conerns that in the extreme case, this could lead to a world of machines anonymously killing without attribution. If you haven't, see Stuart Russell's compelling short film "Slaughterbots" [2]. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Stop Autonomous Weapons, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources