Lifeboat Foundation

A new video released by nonprofit The Future of Life Institute (FLI) highlights the risks posed by autonomous weapons or ‘killer robots’ – and the steps we can take to prevent them from being used. It even has Elon Musk scared.

Its original Slaughterbots video, released in 2017, was a short Black Mirror-style narrative showing how small quadcopters equipped with artificial intelligence and explosive warheads could become weapons of mass destruction. Initially developed for the military, the Slaughterbots end up being used by terrorists and criminals. As Professor Stuart Russell points out at the end of the video, all the technologies depicted already existed, but had not been put together.

Continue reading “‘If Human, Kill’: Video Warns Of Need For Legal Controls On Killer Robots” »

With Gauss Rifles [military squads] could pitch a solar panel, charge their guns’ batteries, and fire nuts and bolts off the ground as ammunition.

“You can hold far more energy in batteries than you can with gunpowder,” Wirth told Futurism. And a battery eliminates the need for “explosive chemical propellants.”

But it’s an entirely new type of armament that could have some potentially dangerous consequences, opening the doors to turn anything from metal rods to nuts and bolts into deadly projectiles. And its creators are already imagining military applications.

Continue reading “A Gun Company Is Now Selling a Handheld Semi-Automatic Railgun” »

What about S-500 makes it so fearsome for stealth fighter jets?

The F-35 is one of the most advanced flying machines ever developed by human beings. Sleek, stealthy, but very expensive, it should dominate the skies for many years to come.

But, has it met its match with the development of the new Russian S-500 surface-to-air missile defense system? Let’s take a look.

Continue reading “Russia’s S-500 Defense System Is Ready To Launch. Is It the Ultimate F-35 Killer?” »

Western intelligence agencies fear Beijing could within decades dominate all of the key emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and genetics.

China’s economic and military rise over the past 40 years is considered to be one of the most significant geopolitical events of recent times, alongside the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union which ended the Cold War.

MI6, depicted by novelists as the employer of some of the most memorable fictional spies from John le Carré’s George Smiley to Ian Fleming’s James Bond, operates overseas and is tasked with defending Britain and its interests.

It feels a bit like a headline ripped from the plotline of the 2013 flick “Gravity” — NASA astronauts suddenly find themselves having to worry more about the threat of space debris whipping around Earth at over 17,000 miles per hour.

Just two weeks after the current crew of the International Space Station had to take emergency shelter in the Russian Soyuz and SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules that are docked to the ISS, NASA has now postponed a planned spacewalk because of the threat.

One source of the increased threat is Russia’s recent anti-satellite missile test that created hundreds, if not thousands, of new pieces of debris in low-earth orbit. On November 15 it was reported that Russia blasted one of its own defunct satellites to smithereens, a move that drew global condemnation.

SpaceX’s newest drone ship is on its way out into the Atlantic Ocean for a Starlink mission that will break the company’s record for annual launch cadence.

Somewhat confusing known as Starlink Shell 4 Launch 3 or Starlink 4–3, the batch of 53 laser-linked V1.5 satellites is scheduled to fly before Starlink 4–2 for unknown reasons and at the same time as Starlink 2–3 is scheduled to fly before Starlink 2–2 on the West Coast. Regardless of the seemingly unstable launch order, perhaps related to the recent introduction of Starlink’s new V1.5 satellite design, drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas’ (ASOG) November 27th Port Canaveral confirms that SpaceX is more or less on track to launch Starlink 4–3 no earlier than (NET) 6:20 pm EST (23:20 UTC) on Wednesday, December 1st.

In a bit of a return to stride after launching 20 times in the first six months but only three times in the entire third quarter of 2021, Starlink 4–3 is currently the first of four or even five SpaceX launches scheduled in the last month of the year. Nevertheless, if Starlink 4–3 is successful, it will also set SpaceX up to cross a milestone unprecedented in the history of satellite launches.

Substantially extending the strike range of fighter jets.

Boeing’s unmanned air tanker MQ-25 Stingray is currently completing ground tests at the Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia in preparation for a carrier demonstration, the U.S. Navy confirmed in a press release.

Unveiled over three years ago, the MQ-25 or T1 tanker is designed to refuel naval fighter aircraft mid-air. Although mid-air refueling is common practice for the U.S. military, this is the first attempt with an unmanned drone. The MQ-25 has been making rapid strides since its unveiling and has successfully completed a refueling attempt of the F-35C aircraft in September this year.

Continue reading “Boeing’s MQ-25 Has Taken One Step Closer to Aircraft Carrier Tests” »

Nearly the same size as Blackpool Tower and twice as large as Big Ben, astronomers estimate that if the asteroid were to hit the Earth, the impact would produce the equivalent energy to 77 megatons of TNT.

This is 1.5 times as powerful as the Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuclear weapon ever tested.

China has tested a weapon that was previously thought impossible, according to a new report.

The hypersonic weapon test saw the country fire a missile from another spacecraft that was already flying at least five times the speed of sound, the report claimed. Such technology was previously thought impossible and US experts are unsure how China was able to actually conduct the test, it said.

Though the test happened in July, and was reported closer to the time, the nature of the breakthrough was first revealed in a new report from the Financial Times. The paper reported that experts have been poring through data in an attempt to understand how China was able to build the technology – as well as what exactly the missile was intended to do.