He created Oculus headsets as a teenager. Now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

"I’ve heard various estimates from the Ukrainians themselves that any given drone typically has a life span of about four weeks."

Maybe if referring to the Mavic scouts or bombers... Because the FPVs and Cessna-based drones have a lifetime based on mission duration. They have an outsized impact, however. I also must say that expensive gear from Anduuril is a drop in the bucket compared to homegrown sea and air drone assets. It has become a diy drone war through and through. Nothing like 2022.

This guy is great. Companies like Anduril are what we need to protect America in the next war. Defense procurement has eaten us alive and made a relatively ineffective fighting force. We need to be capable of creating liberty ships again. And the UAV and USV tech that Anduril pioneers will hopefully lead to a bunch of copycat companies that push low cost weaponry.

High production wins wars. We did it last time. We just have to get it back into action again.

The Thiel collective has reached VP and Pres candidates. If they make it to the White House, this particular pathway is going to open. American hegemony can be preserved and the World can be at peace.

One more comment:

>"And the companies that did have expertise, like Google, like Facebook, like Apple, were refusing to work with the U.S. national security community."

Idk if this is true. I suspect they--at a minimum--cooperate with the "soft" side of the defense industry (e.g. NSA). However, if they don't, I think there will come a time when we will have to bring them to heel. The world won't have the luxury of supporting fat corps who aren't aligned with respective hegemons (e.g. US, China, Russia). They will find themselves supporting the effort or cut off from resources and unable to continue operating.

I’ve still not seen any actual proper evidence of Andruils tech being fielded in Ukraine, and I’m in touch with a rather large number of people on drone and EW teams over there.

It’s become kind of a joke of sorts - we see slick promo stuff for Luckeys shit in the press, but we never see the goods.

This guys PR team has been obviously working overtime in the last few months to make him the new musk. I’m taking note of all the organizations being paid to exhaustingly fawn over the cool new kid of death technology

The “real” Tony Stark to Elon’s Justin Hammer?

(American here) I don't know anything about Palmer Luckey or Anduril, but I do believe in a strong national defense.

As an individual, I can do approximately zero to stop weapons from being used for offense, rather than defense. That is wildly unfortunate and tragic, but (false dichotomy incoming) I would choose that path for my country 100% of the time over being under-armed.

"The strong do what they will while the weak suffer what they must." I can't recommend being weak so instead I will vote for being strong.

All that to say: I am supportive and thankful that someone out there is actually innovating/delivering in this space and not just an MIC-parasite.

There's a grim irony to naming military technology companies (Anduril, Palantir) after objects from a story written by a survivor of the meat grinder that was World War I.

AI weapons seems like a bad bad idea.

> However, in this emerging industry of AI weapons, critics say a lot of bugs still need to be worked out.

The 21st century is shaping up to be pretty terrifying.

Why is this flagged?

200 submarine drones a year? Will these be dumped in the desert with the unused tanks and planes too? What a nightmare.