Those drones we send out to “cleanly” do our dirty work will no doubt eventually become tools of terror. Eric Schmidt tells the Guardian that we should ban privately owned drones, but it would seem to be impossible in our maker culture to put that cat back in the basket. An excerpt from the article:

“The use of cheap, miniature ‘everyman’ drones needs to be banned by international treaties before such devices fall into the hands of private users including terrorists, the head of Google has said.

In an extended interview with the Guardian, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google and an adviser to Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign, warned of the potential of new technology to ‘democratize the ability to fight war,’ and said drones could soon be used to harass and spy on neighbors.

‘You’re having a dispute with your neighbor,’ he hypothesized. ‘How would you feel if your neighbor went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?’

Schmidt set out the trajectory of robotic warfare and considered whether it would be confined solely to national governments. ‘It’s probable that robotics becomes a significant component of nation state warfare,’ he said.

‘I’m not going to pass judgment on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratize the ability to fight war to every single human being.'”