US military surveillance future: Drones now come in swarms?

This is not science fiction coming to life. In my opinion, it is American Exceptionalism moving into the future.

picky picky

Get your American Flag out, it is almost July 4th.

Now, miller. Don't be messing with my thread.

This trend isn't unique to America, and it is far more advanced elsewhere in the West.

Walk the streets of London and and a consolidated video can be produced of your every step.

Actually, America has been unique within the West in not embracing this surveillance of Big Brother.

We, of course, have a Bill of Rights that seems to have eluded our European forefathers.

Having said this, there is an obvious tension between the societal benefits of public surveillance and the (American) individual's revulsion towards being surveilled.

Interesting that such a Progressive as you edgar might actually suggest that the State may be reaching too far to protect it's herd.

Of course the story to which you're alluding has very little to do with real time surveillance of American citizens in general.

While acknowledging that you, almost, alone among your fellow Progressives have not sold your ideological soul to Obama, you still tend to react reflexively to issues based upon what you believe the Progressive approach dictates.

Surveillance by the State is a logical extension of Progressive, not Conservative, policies.

"Drone" is going to have a negative connotation for some time, but it's largely due to people's fear about how they will be used. Near-autonomous machines will enter a commercial market for lots of applications in the next few decades, and we'll be better equipped to sort out the uses.

In the US, there is now some hysteria because generation 1 Predators (camera only) are being used by the USDA to observe cattle and crops. This kind of use, along with fire fighting, transit, and housekeeping are not science fiction, but near science fact.

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Doesn't matter which party rules. They all do it. This stuff is seriously not right.

If there is no God to watch over us, we have engineered a God to fly over us and watch over us. This is how Santa Claus knows who was a good boy or girl.

The thing you have to keep in mind wrt drones, is that putting your own together is a question of a few hundred bucks, and not thousands or tens of thousands...

Yes.
Exactly, edgar.
Couldn't agree more.

This image is cool. But I haven't seen any evidence that anything this advanced exists yet (although I'm sure this is the type of thing they are striving for).

One thing which should be obvious, even if that thing were to actually work, it's only going to work over short distances and on windless days.

Great for penetrating and exploring large indoor spaces. Also, if they could land on a person unobserved they could simply ride to new locations for surveillance.

But it might be cheaper and easier just to co-opt the brain of an existing bug and outfit it correctly...

A more vexing matter is artificial intelligence.

Once computers can think and reason close to the level of humans, doing more than billions and trillions of calculations per minute, should the creators give them the freedom of speech?
And the consequences that'll stemm from such a decision.

How far away from a technological singularity are we?

I suppose there's something appropriately ironic about that. US troops used to come in swarms - still do sometimes.

The poor of the world are in bigger trouble than ever.

Technological singularity?
A scary thought, and it seems like a contradiction.
If that happens, I hope to merge with such technology.

I know it sound all "science fictional" but imagine such a world.
Could you imagine, people who sees their natural arms seen as useless, where prosthetic/ merging with machine in the future is a norm?

Pretty scary, also considering rogue computers taking resistance against humans.
Wait, are we talking about Matrix?