“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,” James Ball reports for The Guardian.
“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 ‘democratise the ability to fight war,’ and said drones could soon be used to harass and spy on neighbours,” Ball reports. “‘You’re having a dispute with your neighbour,’ he hypothesised. ‘How would you feel if your neighbour 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?'”
MacDailyNews Take: Probably close to the same way we’d feel when showering at the gym while surrounded by Glassholes or how Steve Jobs felt watching Android “develop” while you sat on Apple’s Board, mole.
Ball reports, “”[Schmidt said], ‘It’s got to be regulated. You just can’t imagine that British people would allow this sort of thing, and I can’t imagine American people would allow this sort of thing. It’s one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they’re doing, but have other people doing it … It’s not going to happen.'”
“The US government’s use of military drones has proven increasingly controversial, with drone strikes on American citizens the subject of a recent 12-hour Senate filibuster by the Republican senator Rand Paul. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that US drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia have been responsible for at least 2,772 deaths,” Ball reports. “Schmidt’s warnings on privacy in the robotic era notwithstanding, Google itself has been frequently criticised by privacy campaigners concerned about the company’s huge reach and the extensive data collection used to power its multibillion-dollar advertising sales.”
Ball reports, “Challenged on these issues, Schmidt said Google was ‘super-sensitive’ on privacy and had voluntarily kiboshed projects it thought could lead to privacy breaches.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wonder how effective a driverless car could be to harass the neighbors?
Obviously, Eric Schmidt lacks the part of the brain that screams “Shut your mouth, you damnable hypocrite!”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Eric Schmidt claims everyone’s switching from iPhone to Android because it’s more intuitive or something – November 25, 2013
Eric Schmidt on Android: ‘It’s more secure than the iPhone’ – October 8, 2013
Eric Schmidt: Regulate civilian drones but not Google Glass – April 15, 2013
Google’s Schmidt sees ‘majority’ of TVs with Google TV by summer – December 8, 2011
Eric Schmidt: ‘Google is a great innovator; Android effort started before the iPhone effort’ – November 8, 2011
Google CEO Schmidt: If you don’t like being in Google Street View then ‘just move’ – October 28, 2010
Google CEO Schmidt: Change your name to escape ‘cyber past’ – August 18, 2010
Please define “drone.” Does it describe what Mr. Schmidthead droned on about incessantly? And what would fit under the definition of a “drone?”
A self-driving automobile?
A paper airplane? A balsa wood glider with a propeller powered by a twisted rubber band?
Could an elementary school’s science project of firing a small rocket be considered a drone?
A small gas powered replica model radio controlled airplane?
While Schmidt is worried about the nuisance of drones, the cat is already out of the bag – hobbyists play with countless numbers of them. To ban or restrict drones outright might, as others have noted, restrict the discoveries that drones could give educators, researchers, ranchers and farmers, surveyors and more. Mind you, a sky black with countless drones would require air traffic control and some regulation on flying to avoid mid-air collisions and crashes that could harm the public.
But I rather doubt that my neighbor will be able to buy a Radio Shack Model X11045X drone that also can be purchased with an optional Hellfire heat-seeking missile set to get revenge on those pesky neighbors. (Come to think of it, that might not be so bad an idea. But I digress.)
Technology at this point is not self-aware. It’s not Skynet we’re talking about. An iPhone could be used to be the primary control for a bomb, or it could be used to save a life. The iPhone does not decide nor care – it is the human controlling the iPhone, the iPad or a drone that decides the purpose and fate of the device.
Schmidt comes off like a Luddite in his comments, akin to those railing about the dangers of the horseless carriage, the television, vaccines, even computers. To think that these words came from the lips of a man who leads one of the most powerful technology companies on Earth is rather surprising. While a drone can be used in evil ways, we are just starting to see the potential for good in how a drone can be applied, for discovery, for commerce, to find a lost child in a forest, to spot a wildfire early, or to apply a drone in ways we cannot imagine right now. To restrict progress based on fear and misunderstanding is sad, especially so when the person crowing about this runs Google.
Somewhere, Jeff Bezos is having a rather large one of his silly laughs, and rolling on the floor as he does so.
Yeah, only big business and government should be allowed to have them. what a joke.
Smidth is living under a rock.
Go to a nice size open field on any weekend and u will see kids to adults flying drones of all shapes and sophistication around!
They are called radio controlled aircraft… A privet citizen can own one privetly for about 120 bucks all included.
Ban from privet use? Idiot!
Doesn’t everyone already have one? You can build one for a few hundred dollars. A 12 year old can build one using off he shelf parts in a couple if hours. Good luck regulating them.