Scientists, engineers and policymakers are all figuring out ways drones can be used better and more smartly, more precise and less damaging to civilians, with longer range and better staying power. One method under development is by increasing autonomy on the drone itself.

Eventually, drones may have the technical ability to make even lethal decisions autonomously: to respond to a programmed set of inputs, select a target and fire their weapons without a human reviewing or checking the result. Yet the idea of the U.S. military deploying a lethal autonomous robot, or LAR, is sparking controversy. Though autonomy might address some of the current downsides of how drones are used, they introduce new downsides policymakers are only just learning to grapple with.

The basic conceit behind a LAR is that it can outperform and outthink a human operator. "If a drone's system is sophisticated enough, it could be less emotional, more selective and able to provide force in a way that achieves a tactical objective with the least harm," said Purdue University Professor Samuel Liles. "A lethal autonomous robot can aim better, target better, select better, and in general be a better asset with the linked ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] packages it can run."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/national-security/soon-drones-may-be-able-to-make-lethal-decisions-on-their-own-20131008

Rather like a dog with a rubber bone, the Crusher likes to toy with its prey. After first sizing it up, it leaps, rolling and gripping its target until it is sufficiently chewed up and “dead”. Unlike a dog, the Crusher is capable of performing this feat on a line of parked cars.

More disturbingly, this six-tonne, six-wheeled monster developed for America’s Department of Defence and otherwise known as the Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle, or UGV, can pounce without the intervention or say-so of a human operator. It is an ability which, in theory, can stretch to firing the machine-gun mounted on its roof.

The UGV is a forerunner of what many in the defence world believe is the next quantum leap in warfare – a generation of fully autonomous weapons which would be capable of crossing one of the great Rubicons of modern conflict by “deciding” for themselves when to take human life. In the words of one US general, they are the harbingers of an age where “death by algorithm is the ultimate indignity”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/robowar-the-next-generation-of-warfare-revealed--a-generals-dream-but-are-they-also-humanitys-nightmare-8943161.html

What could go wrong?....

Mamana Bibi was tending her crops in northern Pakistan one day in late October 2012. The 68-year-old grandmother was picking okra not far from the family home, when a missile was fired from a remotely piloted aircraft. Bibi was killed instantly, her body torn to pieces just metres away from her young granddaughter, according to a recent report published by Amnesty International.

Four recent major reports have questioned the legality of the United States' drone programme, which has struck targets in several countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia - but it remains unclear how the US will respond to the concerns.

The reports also urge the US to be more transparent about the strikes, and call attention to the attacks' impact on civilians.

Since the release of the reports in late October, US drone strikes have killed the head of the Pakistani Taliban, five other suspected fighters in northwestern Pakistan, and five al-Qaeda suspects in Yemen. It is unknown if there were any civilian casualties in those attacks.

But the reports - two by UN Special Rapporteurs and two by human rights groups - say some of the drone strikes constituted unjustifiable attacks on civilians. So far, the US government has released no official number of civilian casualties from its drone programme. The UN, however, has recorded at least 450 civilians killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan since 2004. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has estimated almost double that figure were killed.

The US denies that it indiscriminately targets civilians and defends the drone strikes, saying they are "necessary, legal and just". Yet some legislators have called on the Obama administration to abide by the recommendations put forth in the reports.

On November 5, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence approved a plan by a 13-2 vote that called for more transparency on the use of drones to kill suspected anti-US fighters overseas. The bill, entitled Intelligence Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2014, states that the US president should draft and publicise an annual report that defines the total number of combatants and non-combatants killed or injured due to the use of "targeted lethal force".

It was not the first time the committee has urged the US government to declassify details of its drone programme. Earlier this year at CIA Director John Brennan's nomination hearing, California Senator Dianne Feinstein - the chairman of the committee - said it had found the civilian deaths from drone strikes were "typically in the single digits".

She added that she believed it was important to make the actual figures public, but was told that she could not do so because it was classified.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/drone-dialogue-flying-circles-2013111216157577126.html

There was a rare light-hearted news story to emerge from the coronavirus outbreak last week. An Australian couple quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the coast of Japan had ordered bottles of wine by drone.

“An Australian couple quarantined on a cruise ship due to the deadly coronavirus kept the party flowing by getting a drone to deliver wine straight to their cabin,” the Australian reported.

“Jan and Dave Binskin, from Queensland, have chronicled their journey of boredom and booze while stranded on the Diamond Princess ship off the coast of Tokyo for the past week.

“‘Thank God for drones, the Japanese Coast Guard did not know what the fuck was going on’,” the couple was quoted as saying.

The Oz was not alone. Fox.news.com was also excited by this yarn: “We’ll drink to that,” the Fox reporter wrote. “An Australian couple has made the best of a bad situation.”

This tale of the resourceful couple made it into the Mail Online, the New York Post, nine.com.au, Pedestrian.tv, Gizmodo, Yahoo.com.au and US news site ABC 14 News

“Inventive Aussies stuck on coronavirus cruise ship in Japan get their wine club to bring them two cases of booze delivered by DRONE,” the MailOnline said.

It was a great story but it wasn’t true. ABC’s RN Breakfast burst the bubble with an interview with the Binskins in which they told Fran Kelly it was “just an upbeat, positive prank” they posted on Facebook where it was picked up by reporters who didn’t check its veracity. The wine came from the cabin steward and not a drone.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/21/ray-hadley-on-andrew-bolt-...

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