DARPA DRONE: Flight or Fight?

DARPA Drone. You may be hearing that phrase quite a bit in the next few years. This version you see in the video is called “V-BAT” an unmanned vertical takeoff and landing drone that can attach a 1 pound claw to a target.  MLB, (AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Brigham Young University) has been selected by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency  (DARPA) to develop the V-Bat.

I can’t decide if I like this idea or not. The futurist in me is stunned that we have these amazing futuristic drones flying in our airspace and I get chills thinking about zooming around in flying cars and hover-bikes . On the other hand, I am frightened that these unmanned [easyazon-link asin=”156858329X” locale=”us”] DARPA [/easyazon-link] drones will be used for negative purposes.

We have heard of [easyazon-link asin=”B007HZLLS6″ locale=”us”] drone [/easyazon-link] attacks and the military appears determined to fill the skies of the Middle East with attack drones. Killer drones are in the news daily and all the conspiracy websites are drooling over all the fear mongering potential. I guess it’s a world view issue.

Fearful people who believe that their fellow human beings are evil will also view human technology as evil.Evil or not, I agree that bombing schools and hospitals is a horrible act of violence that should be avoided at all costs. I also don’t like the idea of our own government crowding our airspace with military drones, designed to spy on U.S. citizens under the veil of “[easyazon-link asin=”0495913367″ locale=”us”] Homeland Security [/easyazon-link].”

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS: Drone love

I can also see the positive use of these [easyazon-link asin=”B007HZLLOK” locale=”us”] drones [/easyazon-link]. Swarm drones could build difficult or dangerous future architecture, urban drones could deliver food and we could even see firefighting drones that could be sent to high-rise buildings or directly into burning buildings to retrieve humans and bring them out.

How do you feel about these drones?