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Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

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21–30 of 46 posts

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#21

So much more they could have said but did not. When do we see the first set of drones that fly into AT&T Park and land on a ledge somewhere letting someone outside the park watch the game? When do we have a drone at 399' run out of charge and fall down doing property damage or injuring someone and the owner never claims their drone back? When do we get Papparazi chasing celebrity weddings with drones? (I believe I re…

There is a mechanism in place in almost any country to regulate aviation based on location, craft capabilities, and operator certification based on supervised experience.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always fancied the idea of drone-waiters. There won't be any need of truck/cab drivers soon too. A lot of jobs will be lost in the future, because of automation. I don't know if that's good or not, however.

Every time human labor is replaced by machines this question gets asked. So far, over many centuries, the answer has unequivocally been: over the long run, replacing humans with machines is incredibly good. The bad is short lived but real - people have to switch jobs, often for lower work because they are too old to amortize new skills training. Short of skynet, I celebrate humans being supplanted.

Yeah, I know it's basically like what happened after the industrial revolution. However, I wonder what the consequences would be, considering the constantly rising population.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#23

On a related topic check out the following libraries to program your 'drones': http://www.artoo.io http://www.cylon.js http://gobot.io/

https://github.com/felixge/node-ar-drone (powers my in-browser air traffic drone augmented reality app: http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/5/augmented-realit...)

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always fancied the idea of drone-waiters. There won't be any need of truck/cab drivers soon too. A lot of jobs will be lost in the future, because of automation. I don't know if that's good or not, however.

Every time human labor is replaced by machines this question gets asked. So far, over many centuries, the answer has unequivocally been: over the long run, replacing humans with machines is incredibly good. The bad is short lived but real - people have to switch jobs, often for lower work because they are too old to amortize new skills training. Short of skynet, I celebrate humans being supplanted.

It only works until 51% of the population is unemployed and in the streets cold and hungry.

The pitchfork business is going to boom at that point.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#25

So much more they could have said but did not. When do we see the first set of drones that fly into AT&T Park and land on a ledge somewhere letting someone outside the park watch the game? When do we have a drone at 399' run out of charge and fall down doing property damage or injuring someone and the owner never claims their drone back? When do we get Papparazi chasing celebrity weddings with drones? (I believe I re…

Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen paint a pretty scary picture for drones in their book The New Digital Age. They predict a similarity between how terrorists and guerrilla warriors use cheap consumer technology now, such as cell phones in IEDs, and how they might use drones in the future as their prices continue to drop. "Imagine [a drone] that is fitted with a homemade bomb on its undercarriage, producing a whole new level of domestic terror that is just around the corner."

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time human labor is replaced by machines this question gets asked. So far, over many centuries, the answer has unequivocally been: over the long run, replacing humans with machines is incredibly good. The bad is short lived but real - people have to switch jobs, often for lower work because they are too old to amortize new skills training. Short of skynet, I celebrate humans being supplanted.

It only works until 51% of the population is unemployed and in the streets cold and hungry. The pitchfork business is going to boom at that point.

Over the past 150 years or so we went from ~90% of the labor force working in agriculture to between 1 and 10% working in agriculture.

That's a shift of about 80% over two generations.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only works until 51% of the population is unemployed and in the streets cold and hungry. The pitchfork business is going to boom at that point.

Over the past 150 years or so we went from ~90% of the labor force working in agriculture to between 1 and 10% working in agriculture. That's a shift of about 80% over two generations.

We were also able to find jobs for those who no longer worked in ag. It appears there is concern (quite a bit, actually) that we may no longer be able to find jobs for those displaced by software and robotics (automation).

If you continue to automate jobs, there will eventually be very few jobs left. How the result of this is handled will be interesting to say the least.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#29
post #9

If you think cheap drones for consumers won't be abused, note there are many thousands of incidents of people purposely pointing green lasers at aircraft in the USA each year.

Why is pointing a laser pointer at a plane a big deal?

It can blind the pilots.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#30
post #12

If one of those things, for whatever reason, blacks-out and kills someone they will be permanently banned. A way around this would be to permit them to fly above specific areas, via predetermined, controlled routes, that pedestrians should avoid to minimize the risk of accidents. But the technology for the police (or any authority) to ID those vehicles and control what they are transporting (or state of transporting)…

Um, as long as government gives permission, one death will be only statistics and won't make a change. Only this thanksgiving there was a little girl (civilian) killed by mistake in Afganistan by US drone (I cannot find news on it somehow). This is a good read as well: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-afghan-civilians-killed-by-...

Oh, but that was a brown person somewhere far away. Everybody knows those aren't real people.
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