To me, the discussion about drones is fun because they are fucking awesome technology. Pilotless aircraft? Seems commonplace today, but it was science fiction not too long ago -- in our lifetimes.Ian wrote:I've never understood the fascination many people seem to have with drones. They're not autonomous (at least not yet, and eventually they'll still be guided by programming), they're just piloted remotely. Is there some big ethical difference between a remotely-piloted aircraft and one where the pilot is onboard? Aircraft have been used for surveillance for over a hundred years (and hot air balloons long before that). Discussions about drones in any context seem really trivial to me, like a discussion in the 1950s about how helicopters or jets are increasingly used in place of propeller aircraft. So what?
And, the technology they're developing to put on these things is amazing.
The ethical issue I see is if the drones programming is to ever be given an "if/then/fire" ability, where a human is not needed to decide when to fire. I expect that for some purposes that would be very useful, like a front-to-front war or a tank battle, where you can get a lot of mileage of incredibly swift attacks by hundreds or even thousands of drones, each with technology allowing them to make targeting and firing decisions.
Argh! The 80's flashbacks! 
