Open access
REGULATING CIVILIAN-USE DRONES AND ROBOTS AS A SERIOUS HOMELAND SECURITY HAZARD
Maciek ZAJĄC1
Impact of New Technologies
Publication language: English
Journal article
Transformations No. 3-4 (94-95) 2017, Publication date: 30 November 2017
Keywords: drones, robots, homeland security, national security, Robotic Revolution, terrorism, ethics of technology
Abstract Drones – platforms remotely controlled by humans – and robots – platforms designed to operate in fully autonomous mode most of the time – are quickly becoming quite ubiquitous throughout our society, bringing a promise of great economic advancement, much safer transport of goods and people and elimination of Dull, Dirty and Dangerous jobs. Welcome as these developments are, they also introduce into our lives thousands of platforms that, absent effective safety measures, could become cheap and easy to use tools for launching mass-casualty attacks from safe distance. Given the potential scope of these attacks, this is one of the most pressing homeland security issues for the next decades. The article puts forward a vision for a regulatory, technological and infrastructural measures for reducing the homeland security threat to an acceptable level without sacrificing either the economic and ethical promise of the Robotic Revolution or the values and interests protected by the civil liberties in the form they currently take.
Department of Ethics, Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw
E-mail: maciekzajac1@gmail.com