NotaGuntuber / Reasonably Violent Machineshop

The type of machines that hunted insurgents in Afghanistan are now parked on a rooftop in your city and Flock just boasted about it. They launch themselves. They are fully autonomous. And used here to hunt and detain an innocent man. Skydio drones. Skydio advertises itself as a service that provides "drones as a first responder" or DFR for short. Drones are kept inside weather proof, ruggedized docks strategically placed throughout the city on rooftops, police stations, and fire stations. Skydio drones are autonomously released after a 911 call or a dispatch order is put through. Within 30 seconds the unit is airborne and sent to the site of the call. Once on scene, officers can access camera feeds or take control of the units themselves. The claim is that these units provide valuable intelligence to officers in real time at angles they otherwise wouldn't have. Not too dissimilar from UAS systems during the GWOT. At face value Skydio doesn't sound terrible. The company really likes talking up officer safety but there is so much more lurking beneath the surface. Beginning with their autonomy, Skydio drones can do more than activate upon a call. They can be issued patrol routes to follow at specific times, leaving open the ability to have an eye in the sky at all times. It operates autonomously and dynamically rather than following a prewritten flight plan. Operators can then order the drone to follow or track specific people or vehicles. Through use of machine vision and predictive algorithms, Skydio drones can follow individuals and vehicles that are obfuscated by cover such as bridges and trees. Drones can also be activated by more systems than just dispatch orders and 911 calls. In fact, they boast about their ability to work in conjunction with other companies' systems such as Flock cameras, Shotspotter detectors, and RTCCs such as Axon Fusus real-time intelligence system (the real nerve centers of modern "policing"). A realistic activation and use protocol would look like the following: 1. Flock camera detects vehicle suspected of being associated with a crime (lets say felony larceny) 2. An operator at the RTCC sees the report from Flock and identifies the vehicle visually. 3. The operators makes use of private and public cameras associated with the network to follow the vehicle in real time 4. Skydio drone is activated by the Flock alert and is airborne within 30 seconds 5. Skydio drone locates and begins autonomously following the vehicle 6. Officers arrive on scene Until step 6, everything was done via computer vision and autonomous systems. Beyond standard vision, Skydio drones also have thermal optics, allowing vision in night or making it impossible to hide behind certain pieces of cover. Skydio drones are as close to military UAS systems as you can get in functionality, just shy of missiles. On paper this might sound great. Criminals can't hide and they get seen early and often. Others might say this feels like an even more dangerous step towards an authoritarian police state. For instance, the city of San Francisco accidentally made all of their Skydio drone footage available to the public. Clips featured drones surveilling areas and locking in on individuals going about their daily lives. In some cases people were sitting in solitude on rooftops, other times they are going to the park to play basketball. Citizens are not criminals. They are citizens. Not civilians. Citizens. With rights. A drone can plausibly follow anyone at any time and through the use of these AI systems, targets can be passed between drones, allowing constant surveillance. It doesn't take a genius to see the potential for abuse. In this case, in response to a self defense shooting a victim of a crime was tracked by autonomous systems like an animal and detained by police for defending his own life. Every day we see new violations of privacy from police departments across the country and we need to draw attention to all of these systems and stop their use while we still can. These companies are selling our governments the shackles to enslave us forever and we need to nip this in the bud while there is still time.