Something New to Worry About: Murderous, Autonomous Drones

Yep. We don't just need to worry over drones killing Pakistani folks, or spying 24/7, making the U.S. into a dystopia where the shards of the Fourth Amendment are ground into dust. No, let's remember that we should also worry about the near-future where drones achieve sentience and, presumably, kill us all. Or, maybe not quite so bad as that, but this piece by J. Michael Cole at The Diplomat Magazine, make it clear that it's not just screaming Luddites who might have a problem with the eventual evolution of our favorite assassination machines. Yes, this future is almost here, to the delight of the Pentagon:

The U.S. military (and presumably others) have been making steady progress developing drones that operate with little, if any, human oversight. For the time being, developers in the U.S. military insist that when it comes to lethal operations, the new generation of drones will remain under human supervision. Nevertheless, unmanned vehicles will no longer be the “dumb” drones in use today; instead, they will have the ability to “reason” and will be far more autonomous, with humans acting more as supervisors than controllers.

Scientists and military officers are already envisaging scenarios in which a manned combat platform is accompanied by a number of “sentient” drones conducting tasks ranging from radar jamming to target acquisition and damage assessment, with humans retaining the prerogative of launching bombs and missiles.

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/01/something-new-to-worry-about-murderous-s