Drones: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
So... Drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as they're more accurately known are dominating global news, innovation and conversation.
The technology has been around for alot longer than one might think, and yes - like most commercial tech, did originate from military research projects (DARPA funded Leading Systems Incorporated to make the first modern-style drone in 1984). There is a noteable point about the origins of technology, or rather - the first use of a technology in the global arena, and this is the first impression that it will make on the general public. Military research projects are actually not typically deployed at the kind of scale UAVs were so soon after prototypes were verified and accepted by the customers (Governments), and on one hand this must have been part of the design of the heads of these governments' armed forces - a new vector of warfare, that there is no precedent for - deployed en masse for maximum force multiplication against an unprepared enemy.
The drone has thus been (and rightly so) painted all over with a blood-soaked brush, a symbol of pragmatic, ruthless yet efficient, devoid of feelings or elevated reasoning & cognition, equipped with shiny sharp tipped Air to Ground missiles. Also that strange fin on the top of where you'd imagine the cockpit to be - making it seem like a vast, rigid metal bird - disconcerting on many levels.
Despite the first use of a technology often unintentionally turning it into something evil, or to be demonised, the technology often becomes a commercial success despite this, as powerful technologies will prevail in a world that values them and creates use for them as naturally as we buy the implementations of them. Many modern 'megatechnologies' are network enabled, which has an effect where once their number reaches a critical mass (mobile phones, PCs, Internet access etc.), there is an explosion in adoption and very quickly the technology will jump from around a 20% adoption to an 80% adoption rate among the general population. Nuclear power is the most extreme example of a technology with inherently evil connotations becoming used for civil and commercial purposes - others such as RADAR and GPS, Walkie Talkies and Jet Engines are less vilified as they merely logistically enabled the armed forces doing the killing, rather than enacting it. these are of course all non network enabled technologies - so commerical use in the public sector is dictated by other factors (GPS has taken off since Bill Clinton allowed public access to higher fidelity measurements previously reserved for the military only in 2000). With regard to connotating Good/Evil attributes to technology, however, it does raise an interesting question about drones - which are not entirely autonomous (especially with lethal payload) yet, so could still be considered an enabling kill technology rather than enactable. The distinction being that the ultimate kill decision is still in the hands of the operator, the drone merely acting as a kind of 'avatar' that allows superior positioning in a logistical sense to engage with an enemy. That is set to change either way, as real autonomy in these robots has been approved as a directive by the DoD since 2012.
For all the power this technology offers to militaries throughout the world, others see very different things when they look at the properties of a UAV. Just search 'UAV' and 'drone' on TED Talks' website and you'll see the myriad applications that have been innovated by free-thinking scientists, engineers and many others from entirely different backgrounds.
We have: Ecological Scanning - monitoring forests, jungles or other areas where traversing on foot is a very slow and inefficient process. This allows many different uses - monitoring endangered wildlife, monitoring effects of logging and deforestation on species counts, growth rates and water drainage over time (using high fidelity, high powered lasers and other sensing equipment to generate very high fidelity 3D information about the ecosystem, and it's composition). Other uses include using IR cameras to search for poachers and illegal logging, WiFi or VHF communication to monitoring spots (e.g. remote timelapse/motion trap cameras, or even animals with ankle tags). (TED Talks here and here).
In it's more commercial form, similar techniques can be used by farmers to monitor their crops faster and more often, and to view patterns from afar - often identifying areas of concern that are not obvious from the ground.
MatterNet is an initiative set up in Africa, where specially adapted quadropters are mass deployed in a tree-span like topology, so basically act as a rapidly deployed infrastructure for delivering high-urgency, low-mass items to remote locations (such as medicines). This is a response to the lack of roads and proper infrastructure that plagues large parts of the continent, medicines often taking many days to reach their destination due to drivers being unable to navigate the treacherous dirt-tracks. Much like the mobile phone has allowed these countries to bunnyhop the Developed world in this sense (no copper cabling ever needed), and enabling instant communication - physically travelling is still a huge issue, especially for time critical operations. Each Drone can currently travel approximately 10km carrying a 2kg payload, for the equivalent of £0.16, and at the end of each 10km hop there will be a base-station where this Drone can recharge and another Drone can take the item along its next leg of the journey. This is an exciting idea, admittedly very open to abuse - but right now they are looking for buy-in and adoption that will allow other forms of Drone to be added to the inventory for carrying larger or bulkier items. (TED talk here).
Railroad surveillance for maintenance, and this can be expanded to any large scale infrastructure technology where it is extremely difficult and expensive to monitor all parts of it all of the time, especially when self-monitoring systems cannot always be relied upon to report errors (for instance if the entire system is compromised or destroyed, including the monitoring part). Similarly - they can be used as early warning systems for forest fires etc. and taking this to it's logical conclusion - may be deployed by emergency services as first responders or surveillance tools for search & rescue teams.
The listed uses range from trivial to important, but an important commonality is that many of the uses come from what it was imagined would be possible when satellites were being deployed en masse - but which never became a reality as their use is so heavily subscribed, their cost and maintenance so much and the security issues they create so large that their use has to be strictly controlled (the last point here is interesting, as Drones are yet to be legislated upon in this way).
Along the more negative uses (as viewed by society) would be uses such as Paparazzi Cams - invading privacy to an unprecedented degree, CCTV drones, and probably amateur drones. This last point requires expansion - as the cost rapidly decreases to create a UAV (drone?) there will be many amateur enthusiasts flying their UAVs around their neighbourhood, probably with a cheap camera attached. Many of these will be perfectly innocent - using open source software to create their own local, more accurate Google Maps type imagery, but this causes massive privacy issues, and I believe it will turn into an amateur arms-race, as those wishing to protect their privacy will employ one of a number of countermeasures to disable these amateur drones. Jamming technology, modified laser pens to burn out circuitry, hacking the UAV directly etc. Which (really speculating here) will quickly lead to basic direction finding (DF) software on board the UAV to identify the origin of hostile signals quickly by triangulation and reporting this to whomever is may concern (as most of these countermeasures will certainly be illegal in one form or another), whether or not the actual drone flying itself will be, is another matter.
On the flip side of this is allowed disabled persons - the most extreme benefits being for those otherwise paralysed or quadriplegic, to be able to control quadrocopters or other light UAVs as a means of personal freedom and perhaps even to do tasks for them (TED talk here).
The limits are just imagination, which is unfortunately a dangerous place for technology to exist without legislation - the Internet is (and was) a good example of this, but the Internet had it's own boundaries - you had to use it to be vulnerable, Drones on the other hand exist in physical space and thus brings everyone, willing or not, into their potential field of view. From a Security perspective this could become a nightmare extremely quickly, and I'm perfectly sure most of our countries' Security Services are pre-empting this... But to those dreaming of a Drone turning up with your Parcelforce delivery 3 hours after clicking buy on Amazon, consider the misuse of such technology to reach targets by extremists and militant cells. I hate to stand on principle about 'terrorism' as I believe it to be one of the most grossly misused and warped terms of the last 12 years, but the reality of the world we live in cannot be ignored, and allowing public access to a 3D-free vector agent with payload capability is asking for trouble.
So, as ever with innovation and technology, legislation is sorely needed ASAP - and to make any sense this really needs to be International, as entirely autonomous UAVs with lethal power and authority are a massive ethical minefield that created an incredibly small amount of debate and research for what is ultimately a paradigm shift in human interaction with the world, and responsibility. The UN has called for a moratorium on Lethal Autonomous Robots, but when has that ever achieved anything, realistically?
However, judging by how awfully the Internet, as a domain, has been as a platform for International co-operation, it doesn't seem likely that such an International convention will occur without intervention at the highest levels. Consider the complete lack of control exerted over the Internet by otherwise powerful nations; for every bust you hear about, and even every hack (without any arrests being made) consider how many nefarious actions go entirely undetected. Now imagine that extended to anonymous Drones - and there becomes a huge issue of freedom and security, as potential threat has moved out of cyberspace into... real space.
The technology has been around for alot longer than one might think, and yes - like most commercial tech, did originate from military research projects (DARPA funded Leading Systems Incorporated to make the first modern-style drone in 1984). There is a noteable point about the origins of technology, or rather - the first use of a technology in the global arena, and this is the first impression that it will make on the general public. Military research projects are actually not typically deployed at the kind of scale UAVs were so soon after prototypes were verified and accepted by the customers (Governments), and on one hand this must have been part of the design of the heads of these governments' armed forces - a new vector of warfare, that there is no precedent for - deployed en masse for maximum force multiplication against an unprepared enemy.
The drone has thus been (and rightly so) painted all over with a blood-soaked brush, a symbol of pragmatic, ruthless yet efficient, devoid of feelings or elevated reasoning & cognition, equipped with shiny sharp tipped Air to Ground missiles. Also that strange fin on the top of where you'd imagine the cockpit to be - making it seem like a vast, rigid metal bird - disconcerting on many levels.
Despite the first use of a technology often unintentionally turning it into something evil, or to be demonised, the technology often becomes a commercial success despite this, as powerful technologies will prevail in a world that values them and creates use for them as naturally as we buy the implementations of them. Many modern 'megatechnologies' are network enabled, which has an effect where once their number reaches a critical mass (mobile phones, PCs, Internet access etc.), there is an explosion in adoption and very quickly the technology will jump from around a 20% adoption to an 80% adoption rate among the general population. Nuclear power is the most extreme example of a technology with inherently evil connotations becoming used for civil and commercial purposes - others such as RADAR and GPS, Walkie Talkies and Jet Engines are less vilified as they merely logistically enabled the armed forces doing the killing, rather than enacting it. these are of course all non network enabled technologies - so commerical use in the public sector is dictated by other factors (GPS has taken off since Bill Clinton allowed public access to higher fidelity measurements previously reserved for the military only in 2000). With regard to connotating Good/Evil attributes to technology, however, it does raise an interesting question about drones - which are not entirely autonomous (especially with lethal payload) yet, so could still be considered an enabling kill technology rather than enactable. The distinction being that the ultimate kill decision is still in the hands of the operator, the drone merely acting as a kind of 'avatar' that allows superior positioning in a logistical sense to engage with an enemy. That is set to change either way, as real autonomy in these robots has been approved as a directive by the DoD since 2012.
For all the power this technology offers to militaries throughout the world, others see very different things when they look at the properties of a UAV. Just search 'UAV' and 'drone' on TED Talks' website and you'll see the myriad applications that have been innovated by free-thinking scientists, engineers and many others from entirely different backgrounds.
We have: Ecological Scanning - monitoring forests, jungles or other areas where traversing on foot is a very slow and inefficient process. This allows many different uses - monitoring endangered wildlife, monitoring effects of logging and deforestation on species counts, growth rates and water drainage over time (using high fidelity, high powered lasers and other sensing equipment to generate very high fidelity 3D information about the ecosystem, and it's composition). Other uses include using IR cameras to search for poachers and illegal logging, WiFi or VHF communication to monitoring spots (e.g. remote timelapse/motion trap cameras, or even animals with ankle tags). (TED Talks here and here).
In it's more commercial form, similar techniques can be used by farmers to monitor their crops faster and more often, and to view patterns from afar - often identifying areas of concern that are not obvious from the ground.
MatterNet is an initiative set up in Africa, where specially adapted quadropters are mass deployed in a tree-span like topology, so basically act as a rapidly deployed infrastructure for delivering high-urgency, low-mass items to remote locations (such as medicines). This is a response to the lack of roads and proper infrastructure that plagues large parts of the continent, medicines often taking many days to reach their destination due to drivers being unable to navigate the treacherous dirt-tracks. Much like the mobile phone has allowed these countries to bunnyhop the Developed world in this sense (no copper cabling ever needed), and enabling instant communication - physically travelling is still a huge issue, especially for time critical operations. Each Drone can currently travel approximately 10km carrying a 2kg payload, for the equivalent of £0.16, and at the end of each 10km hop there will be a base-station where this Drone can recharge and another Drone can take the item along its next leg of the journey. This is an exciting idea, admittedly very open to abuse - but right now they are looking for buy-in and adoption that will allow other forms of Drone to be added to the inventory for carrying larger or bulkier items. (TED talk here).
Railroad surveillance for maintenance, and this can be expanded to any large scale infrastructure technology where it is extremely difficult and expensive to monitor all parts of it all of the time, especially when self-monitoring systems cannot always be relied upon to report errors (for instance if the entire system is compromised or destroyed, including the monitoring part). Similarly - they can be used as early warning systems for forest fires etc. and taking this to it's logical conclusion - may be deployed by emergency services as first responders or surveillance tools for search & rescue teams.
The listed uses range from trivial to important, but an important commonality is that many of the uses come from what it was imagined would be possible when satellites were being deployed en masse - but which never became a reality as their use is so heavily subscribed, their cost and maintenance so much and the security issues they create so large that their use has to be strictly controlled (the last point here is interesting, as Drones are yet to be legislated upon in this way).
Along the more negative uses (as viewed by society) would be uses such as Paparazzi Cams - invading privacy to an unprecedented degree, CCTV drones, and probably amateur drones. This last point requires expansion - as the cost rapidly decreases to create a UAV (drone?) there will be many amateur enthusiasts flying their UAVs around their neighbourhood, probably with a cheap camera attached. Many of these will be perfectly innocent - using open source software to create their own local, more accurate Google Maps type imagery, but this causes massive privacy issues, and I believe it will turn into an amateur arms-race, as those wishing to protect their privacy will employ one of a number of countermeasures to disable these amateur drones. Jamming technology, modified laser pens to burn out circuitry, hacking the UAV directly etc. Which (really speculating here) will quickly lead to basic direction finding (DF) software on board the UAV to identify the origin of hostile signals quickly by triangulation and reporting this to whomever is may concern (as most of these countermeasures will certainly be illegal in one form or another), whether or not the actual drone flying itself will be, is another matter.
On the flip side of this is allowed disabled persons - the most extreme benefits being for those otherwise paralysed or quadriplegic, to be able to control quadrocopters or other light UAVs as a means of personal freedom and perhaps even to do tasks for them (TED talk here).
The limits are just imagination, which is unfortunately a dangerous place for technology to exist without legislation - the Internet is (and was) a good example of this, but the Internet had it's own boundaries - you had to use it to be vulnerable, Drones on the other hand exist in physical space and thus brings everyone, willing or not, into their potential field of view. From a Security perspective this could become a nightmare extremely quickly, and I'm perfectly sure most of our countries' Security Services are pre-empting this... But to those dreaming of a Drone turning up with your Parcelforce delivery 3 hours after clicking buy on Amazon, consider the misuse of such technology to reach targets by extremists and militant cells. I hate to stand on principle about 'terrorism' as I believe it to be one of the most grossly misused and warped terms of the last 12 years, but the reality of the world we live in cannot be ignored, and allowing public access to a 3D-free vector agent with payload capability is asking for trouble.
So, as ever with innovation and technology, legislation is sorely needed ASAP - and to make any sense this really needs to be International, as entirely autonomous UAVs with lethal power and authority are a massive ethical minefield that created an incredibly small amount of debate and research for what is ultimately a paradigm shift in human interaction with the world, and responsibility. The UN has called for a moratorium on Lethal Autonomous Robots, but when has that ever achieved anything, realistically?
However, judging by how awfully the Internet, as a domain, has been as a platform for International co-operation, it doesn't seem likely that such an International convention will occur without intervention at the highest levels. Consider the complete lack of control exerted over the Internet by otherwise powerful nations; for every bust you hear about, and even every hack (without any arrests being made) consider how many nefarious actions go entirely undetected. Now imagine that extended to anonymous Drones - and there becomes a huge issue of freedom and security, as potential threat has moved out of cyberspace into... real space.