Glyn Moody
‘The frontline is like Terminator’: fighting robots give Ukraine hope in war with Russia - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/04/fighting-robots-give-ukraine-hope-in-war-with-russia #ukraine is so far ahead of everyone else in war technology; another reason to support it
‘The frontline is like Terminator’: fighting robots give Ukraine hope in war with Russia

Use of unmanned ground vehicles has grown exponentially since 2024 turning the war into a technological contest

The Guardian
7:11amWeb
Show threadTip13h ago

@glynmoody
"Land robots now account for 90% of Ukrainian army logistics."

That is incredible. From a base of nearly zero 4 years ago.

Boston Dynamics is starting to look like it has a lot of catching up to do. Multimillion dollar robots are not in the mix.

Show threadTip13h ago
@glynmoody
Cheap disposable infantry replaced by cheap disposable drones
Show threadGlyn Moody11h ago
@tip which is progress
Show threadAlexandre Oliva10h ago
is it, though?

nevermind how terrifying it must be to find such things invading one's neighborhood, such tech seems to remove one of the few deterrents to entering wars, namely, the public pressure against loss of one's own invading soldiers. that, compounded with the fact that it turns wars into a purely economic matter, as such gizmos clash with each other, doesn't give me good vibes about the future.

it reminds me of a (Star Trek?) episode in which two civilizations at war evolved their conflict to skip the bombings and the destruction, and went to just picking their own inhabitants that would have been killed and having them line up for painless termination

on the upside, it's somewhat relieving that they don't seem to be using autonomous killing machines

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Show threadGlyn Moody6h ago
@lxo "public pressure against loss of one's own invading soldiers" didn't exist for invasion of ukraine, doesn't exist for invasion of iran.... @tip
Show threadAlexandre Oliva6h ago
there was public pressure in Russia, but I'm told it was crushed and suppressed violently.

there hasn't been an invasion with soldiers in Iran, so there aren't even grounds for public pressure about that.

and then, there's Gaza, where there is (too little) worldwide pressure, but I don't think its concern has to do with loss of Israeli soldiers' lives.

it's not looking good indeed

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