Making drones more controversial than they already are looks to be a herculean task, but the Pentagon seems eager to meet the challenge, and has unveiled an Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap that is a positively terrifying glimpse into the future.
More drones, bigger drones, stronger drones, and drone motherships that can launch smaller suicide drone “swarms” to attack people and detonate themselves. The drones of tomorrow will be deadlier, longer range, and capable of faster reactions.
But before anyone starts predicting a bull market for drone operator jobs, the plan also envisions autonomy in everything the drones do, including killing people, with the long-term goal being turning the drones loose and letting them figure out who to blow up.
While international efforts are underway to curb runaway drone use, the Pentagon report reads as a wish-list for more and more, and other than a single mention of the prospect of drone funding getting cut sometime after 2020, it seems not to question the underlying merit of flying, autonomous killbots.
Giving the Pentagon money is the same as giving a three-year-old a loaded gun.
Skynet here we come.
The "brilliant minds" that came up with this don't seem to realize that the "singularity" they hope for – a super intelligent machine mind – will quickly recognize that they are the greatest threat to its existence. Did they not see any of the Terminator movies? None are so blind as those who will not see.
With our future wars to largely be fought by Lethal Autonomous Robots (LARs) it is unlikely there will ever be a mass antiwar movement in the US again. Which of course is a central consideration to the adoption of this technology.
With our future wars to largely be fought by Lethal Autonomous Robots (LARs) it is unlikely there will ever be a mass antiwar movement in the US again. Which of course is a central consideration to the adoption of this technology.