Slaughterbots

Future of Life Institute · 1.2M views · 2017-11-13 · 7:48

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Overview

An 8-minute fictional short film, made by campaigners for a ban on autonomous weapons, depicting swarms of cheap AI-guided micro-drones used to kill targeted people. It ends with a call to action against autonomous weapons.

On Hacker News

HN cites it whenever drone swarms or autonomous weapons come up, as a dramatized warning that now feels increasingly plausible.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2018–2025

Topics

AI safety, AGI & impact Robotics Military history & warfare

What people said

amarcheschi · 2024-12 · Recommendation
There is another slaughterbots video that's worth watching, [VIDEO] There's also a real video by anduril industries about this not anymore fictional scenario [LINK]
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pierrec · 2018-10 · Recommendation
I'm surprised there's no mention of the short film "Slaughterbots" on this exact topic: [VIDEO] It's very well done and has an HN vibe to it (with a dark twist, of course).
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echelon · 2025-06 · Reference
7 years ago, this felt like science fiction: [VIDEO] Now that we've seen the use of drones in the Ukraine war, 10k+ drone light shows, Waymo's autonomous cars, and tons of AI advancements in signals processing and planning, this seems obvious.
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Future of Life Institute, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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