Drones 'n Bots (oh my!)

This cheerful fellow is a Navy drone, fully autonomous. Just a few weeks ago, the Navy lost control of a drone like this one over Washington DC. Think of it! For several hours, a robotic killing platform was flying over the capital of the Empire, completely uncontrolled. They did get it to finally land, but I suspect how they did that is "confidential". Surely, no lessons can be learned from this experience.

Here's the MDARS, another fully automated drone. The Defense Department is officially rolling these out as roving security systems covering vast tracts of land in Nevada (nuke sites and the like). They just drive around looking for stuff, all day all night. They're not armed (yet), but as with most of the coolest military toys, it won't be long before some scaled down version reaches the big police departments, and then onto your town. I'm sure they can be reasoned with if they pull you over.

And finally, for now, from the ranks of private industry, comes the Googlecopter. Google's been buying a ton of these bots from a German company, and their plan is to use them to augment their Street View service. And surely, they would never be used for any other purpose.


I could go on - and I will, later. But I hope my point is clear: It's only a matter of time.