Right now drones pretty much fall into two categories: million dollar government spies that take out insurgents, and Amazon’s answer to getting you that new chess set you ordered for Christmas.
While drones probably aren’t members of your local police department just yet, there’s little reason to think that in the future big brother government won’t employ them. With the NSA labled can of worms opened up this year by Edward Snowden and smartphone tracking trashcans, police drones seem like a logical next step.
Laughing Squid picked up on this troubling vision of a future created by Alex Cornell that spotlights what public security might look like in the years ahead. Cornell’s footage was shot with DJI Phantom drones in San Francisco and superimposed security graphics to create a storyline of the monitoring police drones.
As Cornell puts it…
“In the near future, cities use semi-autonomous drones for urban security. Human officers monitor drone feeds remotely, and data reports are displayed with a detailed HUD and communicated via a simulated human voice (designed to mitigate discomfort with sentient drone technology). While the drones operate independently, they are “guided” by the human monitors, who can suggest alternate mission plans and ask questions.”
Is it too late to derail technology off its tracks?