>The problem arises when non-state actors wreak havoc with drones and AI with inpunity.

Well, for the rest of the world, state actors wreaking havoc with drones and AI with inpunity is already a problem.

truth. how we collectively became accepting of drones used by our governments to destroy targets half way round the world whilst the pilots sit in some skyscraper somewhere in our own countries is remarkable. honestly the disconnect is beyond deeply troubling.

I don't really grok this thinking. Why is destroying a target by drone different?

It doesn't seem substantively different from destroying a target via long-range missile or via a laser-guided bomb dropped from a human pilot flying thousands of feet over head. All three are impersonal ways of killing other human beings from a mostly-safe distance – especially in our modern asymmetrical engagements.

I agree that it feels gross to imagine a soldier sitting in a skyscraper pulling a trigger to kill people half way round the world, and it feels odd for someone to kill people in the morning and go home to sleep their bed that night, again and again, day after day. But military commanders have effectively been doing that since we've had faster-than-horse battlefield communication. So, I'm not convinced this is some brave new world of impersonal killing.

HOWEVER, I get the problem with drone warfare. Drones provide commanders with several benefits (no human casualties on "our" side, generally great accuracy, relatively low cost, etc.) that let them scale up the killing with minimal public outcry. This seems a real problem.

I guess my point is that the problem is not drones. The problem is killing so many people with so little oversight and so little apparent concern – whether by Cruise missile, drone, nanoswarm, T2, whatever.

I'd reword your sentence to be: "how we collectively became accepting of our governments casually killing our fellow humans half way round the world is remarkable"

There is no disconnect for those drone pilots, who become as troubled as anyone who killed someone with a lesser distance between.

Actually, some are, others could not care less, or are just proud.

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumati...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/28/life-us-drone-...

Evidence for that?

I'm pretty sure that drone-tracking equipment is mounted all over NYC, and more is being deployed as we talk. I can also imagine that a rouge drone arriving from afar and large enough to carry a bomb will be shot down by police if it can't be identified. If it does not carry a bomb, police will apologize.

I'm not buying that.

In fact, the only reason such drone attacks don't happen, or why people hadn't been casually blowing each other up for the past five decades with explosives attached to RC cars / planes is that in general, people are nice to each other. There's plenty of tools out there for dedicated people to wreck havoc in populated areas. Such people simply are very, very rare.

Also as recent news from Berlin shows, you don't even need a drone, a regular old van will do

Further backing up the parent commenter's statement that people are generally nice to each other.

Note that the same thing happened in France recently.

I can hardly believe that. Any drone large enough to carry a camera can carry a hand grenade. They don't have much range but can be launched locally and flown into a crowd.