Air Force Planning New Drone Fleet For Pakistan

mattnyc99 writes "With tensions high on the border, a new commander in Afghanistan, and complaints of civilian deaths from robotic US strikes in Pakistan raising anti-American sentiment, the Air Force is sketching out concepts for new robotic hitmen, reports Esquire.com. Among the new drones (which are all very small) are the Suburb Warrior (loaded with four or five mini missiles for semi-urban environments), the Sniper targeting system ("that can lock on to multiple targets, allowing a single drone pilot to coordinate the attacks of a squadron of robots"), and a backup fleet of flying buggies that act as suicide-bomber snipers. From the article: 'Picking through the dozens of systems in this briefing, many of which will be flight-tested within five years, there's a clear set of goals: build smaller, even microscopic drones with smaller weapons that can hunt in swarms and engage targets in the close quarters of urban battlefields. And hunt as soon as possible.'"

Comments

Re:I for one welcome our robotic overlords

[spyder-implee]

Where will the accountability be? At the moment these things are flown by pilots, but over time they will no doubt become far more automated probably just requiring a brief smeac and be able to work out the rest itself. Who gets the blame when a swarm of these things accidentally targets a bunch of kids on a playground because it confused it for a terrorist training camp? - OK perhaps an over-simplification but it doesn't happen until it happens.