MAROKO133 Breaking ai: UK tests SkyLance drone built for low-cost strikes in GPS-jammed ba

📌 MAROKO133 Breaking ai: UK tests SkyLance drone built for low-cost strikes in GPS

British drone maker Rotron Aerospace has completed a live firing of its SkyLance autonomous strike platform, marking a major step in the race to build low-cost, long-range attack drones for NATO and allied militaries.

The demonstration validated the drone’s propulsion and flight systems, according to the company. Rotron said the platform can operate in electronically contested environments while carrying precision payloads across extended ranges. The company did not disclose range or payload specifications.

The test also highlights growing Western investment in autonomous strike systems as defense planners search for cheaper alternatives to traditional missiles. Long-range drones have become a central focus for NATO members following lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

Focus on NATO demand

The test comes shortly after Rotron’s acquisition by Ondas Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed American firm that plans to expand the British company’s production capacity and international reach. The partnership aims to position SkyLance for defense programs across Europe and allied export markets.

Rotron designed SkyLance as a one-way effector, an industry term now widely used instead of “kamikaze drone.” The platform targets missions where militaries need expendable systems that can strike targets deep behind enemy lines without relying on costly cruise missiles.

The company says SkyLance uses a proprietary propulsion system developed in the United Kingdom. Rotron claims the design improves endurance and efficiency over traditional piston and turbine engines while keeping operating costs low enough for large-scale deployment.

Built for denied environments

SkyLance also targets one of the biggest battlefield problems in modern drone warfare: electronic interference. Conflicts in Ukraine have shown how heavily GPS-dependent drones can fail when exposed to jamming systems and electronic attacks.

Rotron says the aircraft includes onboard autonomous navigation and targeting features that allow operations in GPS-denied areas. The drone can also connect with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance networks for faster sensor-to-strike coordination.

Alex Head, CEO of Rotron, said the company wants to scale production quickly as military demand increases.

“The successful demonstration of SkyLance validates our ability to deliver long-range, cost-effective capability for modern operational environments,” Head said. He added that Rotron plans to accelerate production and delivery through its partnership with Ondas.

Low-cost strike strategy

Defense planners increasingly view attritable drones as critical tools for future conflicts. These systems cost far less than conventional missiles and allow militaries to sustain large attack campaigns without exhausting expensive inventories.

That market expanded rapidly after Ukraine demonstrated the strategic value of mass-produced long-range drones against Russian military infrastructure. Western defense companies now compete to deliver systems that balance range, survivability, and affordability.

Rotron says SkyLance aligns with NATO’s growing focus on distributed long-range strike capability along Europe’s eastern flank. The company also believes the platform could support broader allied efforts to protect critical infrastructure and counter emerging threats at lower operational costs.

The successful firing marks an early milestone for SkyLance as Rotron moves toward potential customer programs and future export opportunities in the expanding autonomous weapons market. Analysts expect demand for autonomous strike drones to rise sharply during the next decade as Western militaries increase spending on scalable battlefield systems.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com

📌 MAROKO133 Eksklusif ai: Man Behind Simulation Hypothesis Warns That Extinction o

Even if you don’t know Nick Bostrom’s name, you’re almost certainly familiar with the idea he’s most famous for.

Back in 2003, when he was at Oxford, Bostrom penned an influential philosophical paper with the incredible title of “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Loosely speaking, his argument was that sufficiently advanced civilizations will eventually build sophisticated simulations of their own ancestors — and that, given enough time in the simulation, those simulated beings will develop their own simulation inside the simulation, where a new set of simulated ancestors will do the same thing, ad infinitum.

You probably get a sense where this is headed: with all these layers of simulated reality, Bostrom thinks that it’s very unlikely that us humans are actually living in the original “base” reality. Instead, we’re statistically probably in some tranche of an Escher-esque cosmic videogame.

Needless to say, the whole thing sparked decades of debate. Big names including Elon Musk have become proponents, while many other experts have argued against the idea.

For his part, Bostrom has moved his attention to a new hot topic: artificial intelligence. For a while, he seemed to be moving in the direction of an AI doomer, issuing a grave warning in 2019 about how AI posed a greater risk to humankind than climate change.

Since then, though, he seems to be changing tack, albeit with his signature flare for ideas so outrageous that they almost sound like parody. In a new working paper, for instance, he argues that developing advanced AI may well result in the extinction of humankind — but that it’s worth the risk, because the upsides of superintelligence could be so profound.

“I call myself a fretful optimist,” Bostrom told Wired‘s Steven Levy in a new interview, deploying a term he’s used before. “I am very excited about the potential for radically improving human life and unlocking possibilities for our civilization. That’s consistent with the real possibility of things going wrong.”

“I guess I’ve been irked by some of the arguments made by doomers who say that if you build AI, you’re going to kill me and my children and how dare you,” he continued, taking aim at his fellow public intellectual Eliezer Yudkowsky. “Like the recent book ‘If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.’ Even more probable is that if nobody builds it, everyone dies! That’s been the experience for the last several 100,000 years.”

Levy pushes back, pointing out that “in the doomer scenario everybody dies and there’s no more people being born. Big difference.”

“I have obviously been very concerned with that,” Bostrom retorted. “But in this paper, I’m looking at a different question, which is, what would be best for the currently existing human population like you and me and our families and the people in Bangladesh? It does seem like our life expectancy would go up if we develop AI, even if it is quite risky.”

These already head-scratching lines hit different when you remember that Bostrom believes it’s likely that we’re already living inside a computer simulation — in his head canon, do all those levels of simulated ancestors develop their own superintelligence, and what does that have to do with the new simulations they feel compelled to build? If AI wipes out humankind, does it build its own simulation? If so, is it simulating its human ancestors, or its creation by humankind? Heck, if our entire world is simulated, are we AI?

We’ll leave it up to readers to take another bong hit while they try to make sense of it all. Perhaps nobody could sum it up better than Levy, who ended the interview with a disclaimer that it had been “edited for length and coherence.”

More on AI: Professors Staffed a Fake Company Entirely With AI Agents, and You’ll Never Guess What Happened

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🔗 Sumber: futurism.com