“US
Special Forces are testing PD-100 Black Hornet drones, one of a new
breed of small drones which can autonomously fly in many different
environments and, experts warn, present scientific, technical and
ethical challenges for military and civilian applications. The Black
Hornet drone weighs 18 grams and carries a regular or thermal camera;
it has a maximum flight time of around 25 minutes, a top speed of 10
m/s and a range of more than 1.5 km. Its camera relays video and
still images to a handheld control terminal.”
“The
tiny drone has been in operational use for three years; the UK
military first began using the PD-100 in Afghanistan in 2012. In
February 2013 the UK Military of Defense revealed its plan to
purchase 160 of the robots, in a contract worth £20 million [$31
million].”
“'Technologies
have reached a point at which the deployment of such systems is —
practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades.
The stakes are high: LAWS have been described as the third revolution
in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms,' writes Stuart Russell,
Professor of computer science at the University of California,
Berkeley. [...] 'The overriding concern should be the probable
endpoint of this technological trajectory. The capabilities of
autonomous weapons will be limited more by the laws of physics —
for example, by constraints on range, speed and payload — than by
any deficiencies in the AI [artificial intelligence] systems that
control them.'”
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