Awesome - thanks for the info and the clarification.
I guess you're correct that we should be careful about the lexicon we use to describe these things. Personally, I don't even like the term Drone.
I see it as an attempt to obfuscate the human element, especially when talking about military operations: i.e. they have a pilot who pulls the trigger - he is just not physically in the weapons delivery platform.
This is a very important, yet very delicate, area that needs to be extremely well deliberated over in the next short while.
I am not confident that politicians have the foresight and testicular fortitude to really make appropriate choices in this matter - especially given the vultures poised on the sidelines with watering mouths over the potential to sell such systems for domestic spying, control and TIA.
>I see it as an attempt to obfuscate the human element, especially when talking about military operations: i.e. they have a pilot who pulls the trigger - he is just not physically in the weapons delivery platform.
Completely agree. I don't know if there are any weaponized UAVs that are capable of fully-autonomous flight, (or if fully[1] autonomous strikes would even be allowed), but I do know that there are fully-autonomous surveillance "drones". Being pilot-less, to me, fulfills the term "drone".
[1]:Practically fully autonomous in the way that a guided missile is. Tell it where to go, and it figures out how to get there.
I guess you're correct that we should be careful about the lexicon we use to describe these things. Personally, I don't even like the term Drone.
I see it as an attempt to obfuscate the human element, especially when talking about military operations: i.e. they have a pilot who pulls the trigger - he is just not physically in the weapons delivery platform.
This is a very important, yet very delicate, area that needs to be extremely well deliberated over in the next short while.
I am not confident that politicians have the foresight and testicular fortitude to really make appropriate choices in this matter - especially given the vultures poised on the sidelines with watering mouths over the potential to sell such systems for domestic spying, control and TIA.