Speaker 1: Get in test with technology with text Stuff from stuff
Speaker 1: dot com. Heathen and welcome to Text Stuff. I'm Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and I'm Lauren Bo. Today we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about some unmanned aerial vehicles you a v s, also
Speaker 1: known as drones drones. So, drones have been in the
Speaker 1: news a lot for multiple reasons. Some of them are
Speaker 1: fun reasons and some of them are not so fun recently. Right,
Speaker 1: they are a really interesting development in robotics that has
Speaker 1: a lot of very positive applications and unfortunately a lot
Speaker 1: of negative ones as well. Right, So we're going to
Speaker 1: cover kind of the whole spectrum. Right, We're gonna look
Speaker 1: at everything from the silly and sublime to the pretty serious,
Speaker 1: pretty serious and scary really uh, and and also talk
Speaker 1: about why is there a debate about drones. But so,
Speaker 1: to start off, Jonathan, what actually is a U A
Speaker 1: b okay so unmanned aerial vehicle? You can essentially say
Speaker 1: that this is any sort of flying device that doesn't
Speaker 1: carry a passenger in it, that is used for some
Speaker 1: other purpose. Usually we go one step beyond what would
Speaker 1: be a typical r C airplane or RC helicopter. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't really call that a drone because there's not really
Speaker 1: anything on there other than the fact that this is
Speaker 1: something for you to pilot around and have fun with.
Speaker 1: So like a remote control air shark, maybe maybe not
Speaker 1: a drone. Yeah, probably not a drone. But if you
Speaker 1: were to put say a camera in that remote controlled
Speaker 1: air shark and you could actually spy on people, that
Speaker 1: would be a air shark drone. Probably not the most
Speaker 1: subtle of unmanned drones that you've ever seen. But maybe
Speaker 1: you were to create something like a camera on it,
Speaker 1: and also to have some sort of fabric display, which
Speaker 1: is a possibility. Let's say you have a fabric display
Speaker 1: and then on the underside it can actually show you pictures.
Speaker 1: That would be like a crazy kind of art experiment
Speaker 1: that I would expect to see it burning man or
Speaker 1: dragon con. I really want that now, actually totally something
Speaker 1: that could be a possibility. And so when we're talking
Speaker 1: about drones, were usually talking about something that does something
Speaker 1: on top of just flying around. Now that might mean
Speaker 1: that it's got some cameras and sensors on it that
Speaker 1: allow it to do some things like navigate through spaces
Speaker 1: or give you a look at a particular area. Maybe
Speaker 1: it doesn't have those sensors. Maybe it just carries stuff.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about some of the crazy delivery drones
Speaker 1: that have popped up, sometimes literally across the globe. But
Speaker 1: usually these are controlled remotely by a pilot using some
Speaker 1: sort of interface that connects via radio signal to the
Speaker 1: vehicle's navigation and control systems, or the vehicles themselves are autonomous,
Speaker 1: meaning that they can use their own sensors. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: you have to program what it's going to do ahead
Speaker 1: of time. It's not like they have artificial intelligence. And
Speaker 1: can you know, it's not RoboCop on wings, you know,
Speaker 1: I suppose it could could hypothetically be one day, One
Speaker 1: day we might get there. But right now we're talking
Speaker 1: about devices that you you give it a pre program
Speaker 1: set of parameters. Perhaps it's to fly to a specific
Speaker 1: coordinate and then fly back, and it's using things like
Speaker 1: the GPS sensor to navigate to where it needs to go. Uh.
Speaker 1: But otherwise, once once you've said in motion, it takes
Speaker 1: control of itself. I think most drones tend to be
Speaker 1: under human control. Although we have drastically increased that capability,
Speaker 1: it used to be that it was all line of sight.
Speaker 1: In other words, the controller had to be able to
Speaker 1: see the the drone in order to maintain control. That's
Speaker 1: not the case now. Increases in miniaturization and GPS technology
Speaker 1: has has really pushed that field force certainly. Yeah, satellite
Speaker 1: communications has made it possible for us to have ridiculous
Speaker 1: kinds of control over unmanned aerial vehicles. So they can
Speaker 1: often stay in the air for longer than a day,
Speaker 1: particularly when we start talking about some of the ones
Speaker 1: that are used in scientific research and military applications, they
Speaker 1: can go for up to up I've heard up to
Speaker 1: forty eight hours and without refueling in some cases. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: so you can have forty eight hours of consistent flight time.
Speaker 1: And now, obviously, if you're talking about a manned control situation,
Speaker 1: you then are also talking about having shifts switching off
Speaker 1: teams of pilots, right, And there's there's usually for for
Speaker 1: this kind of thing to pilots, one to actually do
Speaker 1: the controlling assumed assuming that it's not being autonomously controlled,
Speaker 1: and a second watching the sensory readouts and helping the
Speaker 1: pilot there, right, And then some some cases you're talking
Speaker 1: about even larger teams. But we'll talk about some of
Speaker 1: the more complex ones in a bit. So they also
Speaker 1: can very pretty widely in size and sophistication. So a
Speaker 1: typical tiny little drone you might think of like the
Speaker 1: parrot drone, which is a quadrocopter drone. It's the kind
Speaker 1: of has the rotors on the four corners, so it
Speaker 1: gives it a very stable flight path, and you can
Speaker 1: even do some crazy trips tricks. Rather, you can do
Speaker 1: crazy trips too if you wanted to, but crazy tricks
Speaker 1: letting it do things like barrel rolls, although it's more
Speaker 1: like a very quick flip because obviously you lose stabilization
Speaker 1: once those those uh, those those blades go vertical as
Speaker 1: opposed to horizontal, and then you can control that with
Speaker 1: an iPhone, So you can actually use a smartphone to
Speaker 1: control a parrot drone. I was talking earlier today about
Speaker 1: how I had a really crazy schedule today. So today
Speaker 1: Jonathan schedule included a phone call with FEMA uh A
Speaker 1: talk about electronics in the f a A, which was
Speaker 1: an episode that we recorded earlier today, although when it
Speaker 1: publishes is a mystery, and then also talking about drones,
Speaker 1: and so a friend of mine said, oh, so is
Speaker 1: that is this all in preparation for talking about how
Speaker 1: FEMA could control a drone with a an iPhone because
Speaker 1: the Apple event was also the day that we're recording
Speaker 1: this and said, you know, you're making a joke, but
Speaker 1: that's totally possible. But as the parent drone allows you
Speaker 1: to control it with an iPhone, absolutely, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: these are small, you know, commercial devices. You can you
Speaker 1: can go out and buy something. Yeah, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: actually buy one right now. And I remember the first
Speaker 1: time I saw one at ce S several years ago,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty ten or maybe even earlier, and I was
Speaker 1: really impressed. And it included a little camera on the
Speaker 1: device itself, so it could allow you to look around
Speaker 1: and you were you were able to play games with
Speaker 1: other people who had parent drones and do kind of
Speaker 1: a virtual shoot him up type thing that would be
Speaker 1: reflected with your actual drones real world location. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of neat stuff. But if you want to talk
Speaker 1: about the other end of the spectrum, now, that's on
Speaker 1: the simple side, right, that's that's a very small, portable
Speaker 1: device that the average person can use and you're using
Speaker 1: a very simple interface to control it. The other end
Speaker 1: of that spectrum is drones that are the size of
Speaker 1: an actual like manned aircraft, like a small business jet
Speaker 1: or so I think is the size that which I
Speaker 1: think are the largest military drone and predators are both
Speaker 1: pretty big. Yeah, because a predator. If you see a
Speaker 1: picture of a predator drone, you might think, what's the
Speaker 1: size of that? Is that like maybe you know, half
Speaker 1: the size of a car? No, those are much bigger
Speaker 1: than cars, but they if from casual glance, if you
Speaker 1: were near one, you might think, well, that's an interesting jet.
Speaker 1: Where's the cockpit because I don't see where the person
Speaker 1: would look out because it looks blank. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: in fact a drone, and so you end up flying
Speaker 1: it using all the different sensors and cameras that are
Speaker 1: on it as the guidance. Although for aerodynamic purposes it's
Speaker 1: still shaped more or less the way that a passenger
Speaker 1: airplane would be, right, I mean, and that just makes
Speaker 1: sense for pure physics, right, I Mean, it's not like
Speaker 1: theoretically we could have it shaped anything that would fly,
Speaker 1: But why would you change it up so much if
Speaker 1: that's the most efficient shape. I kind of want them
Speaker 1: to paint just just go ahead and paint like a
Speaker 1: cylon toaster, have like a little led that goes back
Speaker 1: and forth and it just constantly chanced by your command.
Speaker 1: That's from the nineteen superior version of Bellstar Galatica. Um,
Speaker 1: we're really gonna have to have a geek fight about
Speaker 1: that same day, Chaathan. Anyway, there will be a reckoning.
Speaker 1: So with those kind of military style drones are the
Speaker 1: ones that scientific endeavors are using. These large, large drones,
Speaker 1: those are the ones that need multiple people to really
Speaker 1: control it. And also they usually have a link up
Speaker 1: where you can control it from quite a far away away.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that a little bit later. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: there's some rules about drones though, right, Yes, some some
Speaker 1: countries China for example, and this will become important in
Speaker 1: a moment. Uh. It's it's basically legal to operate commercial
Speaker 1: drones anywhere that you want, as long as you get
Speaker 1: local authorization. Here in the US, um, drones are authorized
Speaker 1: in some military airspace and patroller borders. Also there's some
Speaker 1: three public agencies that can use them at low altitudes
Speaker 1: away from airport. Right. It's essentially the same sort of
Speaker 1: rules that the Guide r C h r C flight
Speaker 1: vehicles like anything like a remote control plane and remote
Speaker 1: controlled helicopter. There are specific rules that that are dictated
Speaker 1: by the US government and most of them are the
Speaker 1: same as for the drones. Sure, sure, And now, um,
Speaker 1: the f a A. H the Federal Administration, thank you.
Speaker 1: I always want to say aeronautics, and that's not quite
Speaker 1: the right word. Um, it does is working on new
Speaker 1: regulations right now. They're supposed to come out in and
Speaker 1: at that point we're probably going to see a lot
Speaker 1: more commercial and private drones flying around. Yeah, it's going
Speaker 1: to be one of those those things where they'll be
Speaker 1: there may be some more specific rules to guide this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. You know. This is again another one
Speaker 1: of those examples of how technology evolves faster than the
Speaker 1: laure because I don't know if you've ever noticed, but
Speaker 1: the government does not move in the speed of night,
Speaker 1: certainly not by Morris law. No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: So so we see these developments happen faster than the
Speaker 1: way agencies can legislate them. But that is coming. The
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen will be interesting to see exactly how
Speaker 1: the f a A handles that and and how, you know,
Speaker 1: is it going to be really restricted? Is it going
Speaker 1: to open things up. Will there be specific agencies that
Speaker 1: people who operate drones will have to report to? We
Speaker 1: don't know. We have to wait. It's a it's it's
Speaker 1: part of a larger like sixty three point four billion
Speaker 1: dollar initiative for the f A to to update traffic
Speaker 1: control systems and expand airspace. So that's important stuff. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about some uses fun uses of some drones,
Speaker 1: like scientific research. So there are a lot of organizations
Speaker 1: out there that are using drones in some way or
Speaker 1: another to conduct scientific research, and that includes NASA and Noah.
Speaker 1: Those organizations are both using drones to study inhospitable environments
Speaker 1: here on Earth, right, you know, lots of places that
Speaker 1: it would either be uh overly expensive or difficult or
Speaker 1: dangerous to get humans out to to take a look at. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we can get an unmanned aerial vehicle to fly by,
Speaker 1: say a giant crater that's remote and difficult to access otherwise, oh,
Speaker 1: to say, or in a volcano or at an oil
Speaker 1: spill or exactly. Yeah. So here's some of the examples,
Speaker 1: and we've mentioned a couple of them. Oil spills, volcanic ash,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Looking at these sort of things
Speaker 1: that's that can be hazardous, but also they using UH
Speaker 1: drones to explore repositories of ice in Greenland, Antarctica, and Alaska.
Speaker 1: In other words, trying to get a real look at
Speaker 1: what how how these giant areas of ice are doing
Speaker 1: because the melt off is happening pretty quick quickly, but
Speaker 1: it's hard to get a good look at it because
Speaker 1: these are pretty remote areas. U a v s can
Speaker 1: give us a much closer look at that. NASA is
Speaker 1: using them to study hurricanes, so we're looking at the
Speaker 1: way hurricanes develop and sort of the paths they take,
Speaker 1: and also how hurricanes how storms can change when they
Speaker 1: start to encounter different types of land masses. This hurricane
Speaker 1: season in particular, NASA is using a lot of drones
Speaker 1: to um to just watch the way storms are developing
Speaker 1: and and send information back. Yeah, they're using what are
Speaker 1: called global Hawk drones, which are the same type of
Speaker 1: drones that are used in some military surveillance operations. Global
Speaker 1: Hawk is not the most prevalent of the drones that
Speaker 1: the military uses, but it's sort of one of the
Speaker 1: precursors to what we tend to use today. We've also
Speaker 1: seen agencies use these drones to study wildfires and to
Speaker 1: get an idea of where the wildfire is spreading. Again,
Speaker 1: obviously a very dangerous situation to send people into. And
Speaker 1: you know, the worst case scenario with a drone in
Speaker 1: this kind of situation is that you lose an expensive
Speaker 1: piece of equipment. But the worst case scenario in other
Speaker 1: situations is that you lose human life. So that's obviously
Speaker 1: one of those reasons why it's very attractive for science.
Speaker 1: Diffic study also is a bonus. These things can can
Speaker 1: fly lower, slower, and more quietly than um than a
Speaker 1: typical manned aircraft, right, so you can get a longer
Speaker 1: look at things. And perhaps if you're using it even
Speaker 1: to study things like wildlife, it's not as likely. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and these research vehicles can vary, just like the
Speaker 1: U A v's we talked about at the top of
Speaker 1: the show. And and Lauren, I think you found an
Speaker 1: interesting U A V that's being used in scientific research,
Speaker 1: something that's actually using solar power. Right, there's something called
Speaker 1: a pathfinder that was built in the nineties for civilian
Speaker 1: purposes like collecting data on on weather and the climate. UM.
Speaker 1: It's it's reached. It's it's reached a record of of
Speaker 1: height for solar powered aircraft, which is what's that sixty feet? Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is something like twenty kilometers kilometers. That's that's pretty
Speaker 1: incredible elevation for an unmanned vehicle, right and you know
Speaker 1: not not too and that kind of data is is important.
Speaker 1: Yep yep. Uh. So other uses for drones include things
Speaker 1: like historic research. I came across an article that was
Speaker 1: interesting was talking about Peruvian archaeologists who were using drones
Speaker 1: to explore ancient ruins without disturbing the area with actual
Speaker 1: vehicle or foot traffic. So they didn't want to disturb
Speaker 1: an area that had a lot of cultural and historical significance. Also,
Speaker 1: they want to use drones as a way of monitoring
Speaker 1: a site, so not just mapping a site, which has
Speaker 1: turned out to be incredibly useful. In fact, I read
Speaker 1: one archaeologist report that said that they were able to
Speaker 1: do in a few days the same sort of work
Speaker 1: that normally would take them years to map out a site.
Speaker 1: But they also want to use it in order to
Speaker 1: monitor a site and keep people from taking advantage of it.
Speaker 1: There are examples of people who have squatted on land
Speaker 1: that's directly a adjacent to historic sites, either as a
Speaker 1: means of trying to monetize that or just because they
Speaker 1: figure that by being close to something like that they
Speaker 1: are less likely to be displaced. So it's kind of, uh,
Speaker 1: it's this idea of trying to protect the area before
Speaker 1: people try and leverage that in some other way. You
Speaker 1: also have a note about using using this for pest control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Florida is looking at using drones for pest control. Now
Speaker 1: they're not actually talking about arming drones with some sort
Speaker 1: of pesticide and then blasting it at laser mosquitoes, app
Speaker 1: or something like that. They're outfitting all the drones with
Speaker 1: these two giant robot arms that come together in a
Speaker 1: slapping motion and then they're just gonna squish them one
Speaker 1: by one. So that's not true. Now, it's Florida's using
Speaker 1: looking at using drones in a way of controlling the
Speaker 1: mosquito population. Now, mosquitoes obviously can carry lots of different
Speaker 1: diseases that can be very harmful to animals and people,
Speaker 1: and they mostly they must be breed in very shallow
Speaker 1: pools of water. Still shallow pools of water. That's where
Speaker 1: you get the mosquitoes breeding, you get all the mosquito
Speaker 1: larva and uh, I don't know if you're familiar with
Speaker 1: Florida having lived there for so long, only four years.
Speaker 1: So there's some some there's like a little puddle called
Speaker 1: the Everglades that's out there where there could that's a
Speaker 1: lot of It's a large area, right, We're talking like
Speaker 1: lots and lots of square miles or kilometers if you prefer,
Speaker 1: that could potentially have this kind of shallow water where
Speaker 1: mosquitoes could breed. Now, traditionally what would happen is Florida
Speaker 1: would send out people to go and cover this ground
Speaker 1: and look for places that would be mosquito breeding grounds
Speaker 1: and then treat those areas so that they could control
Speaker 1: the mosquito population somewhat. But that's time consuming and expensive,
Speaker 1: and it's it's hard. It's hard to send people out
Speaker 1: and really, you know, covered all that ground, because it
Speaker 1: really is a great deal of ground. There's alligators and
Speaker 1: sometimes crocodiles if you get far enough towards the coast. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the point being that there are many things that could
Speaker 1: potentially cause someone harm or just be difficult to navigate around.
Speaker 1: Um and uh not to mention things like boa constrictors
Speaker 1: and anacondas. But more importantly, drones can be used to
Speaker 1: deliver cakes. Okay, yes, alright, so we're going beyond past
Speaker 1: control here, we're going into using drones to deliver things,
Speaker 1: including possibly cake, although that may or may not also
Speaker 1: be a lie. Uh no, no. Drone delivery is something
Speaker 1: that has popped up a few places, and it's mostly,
Speaker 1: I would argue, a kind of us A publicity stunts,
Speaker 1: the marketing. It's not not meant as actual like here
Speaker 1: here's service because it is so much more expensive and unreliabing,
Speaker 1: and it's still very werek intensive because you still have
Speaker 1: to have someone navigating the drones and in most of
Speaker 1: these cases the drones are remote controlled, so there's actually
Speaker 1: you have to have a car or a person following
Speaker 1: the drone right when you could just have that person
Speaker 1: deliver whatever it is. But that's not nearly as cool
Speaker 1: as having this rhodocopter thing dropped from the sky and
Speaker 1: deliver your pizza. And by the way, pizza is one
Speaker 1: of the things in fact Domino's Pizza, the doma coopter
Speaker 1: demacopter this is this is in the UK right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as in the UK. It was a joint effort between
Speaker 1: Aero Site, which was the company that built the drone,
Speaker 1: a company called Big Communications, in another company called T
Speaker 1: Plus Biscuits. It's cute that very very British. Um. And
Speaker 1: so this was a sort of a publicity stunt where
Speaker 1: they showed a a quad copter very similar to something
Speaker 1: like the Parrot drone that you could you could look
Speaker 1: up online. There's a quad copter that could carry a
Speaker 1: bag that would contain pizzas. Um, there's a heat bag,
Speaker 1: you know. It's one of those that is lined with
Speaker 1: a reflective material on the inside to try and keep
Speaker 1: as much heat in as possible. And I saw a
Speaker 1: video where they loaded one up with two pizzas and
Speaker 1: then flew it over some fields into a different, uh
Speaker 1: like neighborhood and landed it near a guy who pulled
Speaker 1: his pizzas out, and then it flew off again. Very clever,
Speaker 1: but again mostly just a marketing kind of stunt here.
Speaker 1: It's not something you're not going to get robot delivery
Speaker 1: of pizzas because, like you were saying, Lauren, you had
Speaker 1: to have a human pilot who had to have a
Speaker 1: line of sight on this to make sure that they
Speaker 1: were not going to pilot into a tree or or
Speaker 1: drop the pizza in the wrong place. I mean, nothing
Speaker 1: is more irritating. I think you'll agree that when you
Speaker 1: order pizza and you find out that you know you're
Speaker 1: you're my pizza drone has delivered to the next house
Speaker 1: over right. Yeah, like all those people who listen to
Speaker 1: fish all night long at all your pizza, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, Lauren. Anyway, so all the time
Speaker 1: with those pizza drones. Also in Shanghai, China, a company
Speaker 1: called in Cake was was delivering cakes in a very
Speaker 1: similar way. Yeah. Another delivery company in China called SF
Speaker 1: Express was using drunes to deliver packages. The packages could
Speaker 1: weigh up to six point six pounds or just under
Speaker 1: three kilograms, and the drones themselves could fly at an
Speaker 1: elevation of three thirty feet or just over one which
Speaker 1: is pretty high for one of those old quad copters.
Speaker 1: Supposedly that that in Cake company got got shut down,
Speaker 1: or the drone delivery system anyway got shut down by
Speaker 1: Shanghai police when they got worried calls in from the
Speaker 1: populace saying like I am in danger from this cake Drone.
Speaker 1: There are from this cake drone aliens flying over the
Speaker 1: city and they're dropping confectionery on us. Uh, I think
Speaker 1: we're like three D cakes. I'm still I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit obsessed with this. Yeah, I need some flying cake.
Speaker 1: So in Philadelphia there was a cleaner, a dry cleaner.
Speaker 1: The men a young cleaners and I'm sure I'm this
Speaker 1: pronouncing that, but any kind of Native American names from
Speaker 1: the Northeast are completely beyond my ability to pronounce. But anyway,
Speaker 1: this was a dry cleaners that used a drone to
Speaker 1: deliver dry cleaned clothing to cut to mers. But that
Speaker 1: one required two operators, and it required someone who was
Speaker 1: holding the controller and also a spotter. There was no camera, right,
Speaker 1: most most of these rigs have included cameras, right, But
Speaker 1: like the one the Dominoes, one had a camera bill
Speaker 1: it so if you watch the video you can actually
Speaker 1: see it from the the drones point of view as
Speaker 1: it flies across the English countryside delivering pizza by by
Speaker 1: by flight. But there's also the Taco copter, which I
Speaker 1: really hope this becomes a thing because I want if
Speaker 1: I could get my tacos delivered by robot I don't
Speaker 1: think I'd ever leave the house. Um to San Francisco
Speaker 1: area Bay Area invite only app where you can order
Speaker 1: tacos and have them delivered via drone. Although it's more
Speaker 1: or less just a concept right now, it's not really
Speaker 1: a service. And again, this is one of those things
Speaker 1: where they are talking about waiting for the f a
Speaker 1: a S regulations to really you know, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to pour a lot of money into a business
Speaker 1: that might not be able to operate depending upon what
Speaker 1: the FAA's regulations are. Right. Sure that goes along with
Speaker 1: your next note, which is for a burrito bomber. Yes,
Speaker 1: Darwin Arrow spaces burrito bomber. It's a drone that drops
Speaker 1: burritos on you. But the burritos also have little little parachutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you get parachute dropped burritos. I would also be
Speaker 1: I would welcome I would welcome a delivery of burritos
Speaker 1: by a parachute over my place. UM, I do not
Speaker 1: welcome people just pelting my place with burritos. I want
Speaker 1: to be clear about this. I want to go home
Speaker 1: and find a bunch of burritos splatted against my house.
Speaker 1: You guys, I have to admit, I think that would
Speaker 1: be hilarious. Yeah, what's your address, Lauren? So yeah, these
Speaker 1: are these are some of those kind of gimmicky, clever
Speaker 1: things that we're seeing. But I don't think that it's
Speaker 1: necessarily going to become a real delivery service anytime soon
Speaker 1: beyond just the the curiosity. Certainly not until here in
Speaker 1: the U s. The f A passes this new regulation.
Speaker 1: The China one, I can almost understand because at least
Speaker 1: the SF Express one was all about delivering in a
Speaker 1: city in China that was known for its massive traffic congestion. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a city of about eight million. I think that
Speaker 1: that was on relatively small territory and uh, and it
Speaker 1: was in the testing phases as of the last time
Speaker 1: that I read an article about it, but it seemed
Speaker 1: like it was operating within parameters as of yet. So
Speaker 1: and since and since it is legal in China, basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: in that case, I can kind of see it happening
Speaker 1: in the sense that, well, there are some use case
Speaker 1: scenarios where it would actually be more efficient to have
Speaker 1: someone who perhaps is on like a fairly tall building
Speaker 1: and can navigate something that way. But even then it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little it's a little weird. Um.
Speaker 1: So that kind of covers the civilian and corporate uses
Speaker 1: of drones, as well as the re search institute uses
Speaker 1: of drones. But there's another use that we need to cover,
Speaker 1: and that of course is military. But that's a huge,
Speaker 1: huge topic. So before we get into that, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. All Right, so
Speaker 1: here's the part of our our conversation where we really
Speaker 1: do get pretty serious and talk about a controversial use
Speaker 1: of of drones. And there are a couple of different
Speaker 1: ways that the military uses them, um and and one
Speaker 1: is certainly far more controversial than the other. But first
Speaker 1: let's look at sort of the history of unmanned aerial
Speaker 1: vehicles in the military, because yeah, in fact, the first
Speaker 1: one is arguably you can argue this is the first
Speaker 1: use of u a v s in military. The first
Speaker 1: one actually pre dates powered manned flight, and that would
Speaker 1: be on August twenty two, eighteen forty nine. And I
Speaker 1: know what you're all thinking, like, how could there be
Speaker 1: a drone in eighteen forty nine. It wasn't so much
Speaker 1: a drone as it was this concept of I want
Speaker 1: to be able to UH to attack a certain target,
Speaker 1: and I want to do it in a way that's
Speaker 1: going to minimize risk to my resources. How do I
Speaker 1: do that? Well, the Austrians figured during the First Italian
Speaker 1: War of Independence, which was a war that was fought
Speaker 1: between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire for control,
Speaker 1: really they figured, well, we want to attack Venice, but
Speaker 1: we don't want to risk our own resources. We're going
Speaker 1: to use two hundred balloons, and each balloon is going
Speaker 1: to carry a bomb, and those bombs will have some
Speaker 1: method of detonation. I have read different reports, nothing that
Speaker 1: was completely confirmed, but one was that there was actually
Speaker 1: a wire that would come back that they would apply
Speaker 1: an electric charge too, and that would detonate the bombs.
Speaker 1: Others said it was just a fuse, but at any rate,
Speaker 1: the balloons were meant to float over towards Venice and
Speaker 1: then detonate their UH. From why I understand it was
Speaker 1: not a very successful attack. I think only a handful
Speaker 1: of balloons actually made it towards Venice, but a shift
Speaker 1: in the wind meant that some of them just started
Speaker 1: floating right back toward the Austrian lines, which is not
Speaker 1: what you want to see when you're launching an attack.
Speaker 1: Of course, if they had complete control of when those
Speaker 1: bombs detonated, then that would be that would just mean
Speaker 1: it would be a failed attack as opposed to accus danger.
Speaker 1: Right um. During the American Civil War, a patent was
Speaker 1: filed for a similar time delay fuse mechanism balloon based
Speaker 1: bomber that I don't think ever went into use because
Speaker 1: they couldn't ever quite figure out how to make that
Speaker 1: fuse work proper rate in a non hazardous way right
Speaker 1: where you you know, you're not just as likely to
Speaker 1: blow up yourself as you are your target. Sure. In
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties, cameras were used on kites during the
Speaker 1: Spanish American War for reconnaissance purposes. Right uh. The British
Speaker 1: Royal Navy began to experiment with radio controlled Queen b
Speaker 1: This was this was a drone of radio controlled drone
Speaker 1: for mostly for target practice. But but but it could
Speaker 1: fly like a hundred miles per hour, which I feel
Speaker 1: like it is a pretty impressive drone capacity for the time. Um.
Speaker 1: During World War Two, the Nazis developed what was called
Speaker 1: the Revenge Weapon one or or V one more commonly,
Speaker 1: which was an unmanned bomber that was responsible form for
Speaker 1: over nine British civilian deaths. And that was when ah, wait,
Speaker 1: what bomb wielding bats? Am I reading this note? Right?
Speaker 1: So so Franklin D. Roosevelt approved research into releasing bomb
Speaker 1: wielding bats from airplanes. And ideally with the way this
Speaker 1: would work would be that the bats would seek shelter
Speaker 1: and buildings too through the strings separating themselves from the devices,
Speaker 1: and then the device would detonate, you know, blowing up
Speaker 1: the enemy's buildings. In In the only test that ever
Speaker 1: happened that I've heard about, um, a bunch of hibernating
Speaker 1: bomb ladin acts were dropped to their deaths from an airplane.
Speaker 1: So the bats were asleep and then just were dropped
Speaker 1: and then they splatted. Wow, well we salute you splatted bats.
Speaker 1: So in the sixties and seventies, the US used the
Speaker 1: a q M thirty four Ryan fire bees and elect
Speaker 1: and lightning bugs. So what these are re reconnaissance robots? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they were. They were controlled from a host plane. Um
Speaker 1: those lightning bugs where were joystick controlled? Actually? And those
Speaker 1: were used for reconnaissance in China and Vietnam. They had
Speaker 1: a lot of problems with these reconnaissance vehicles, particularly in
Speaker 1: in harsh weather conditions, and that was one of the
Speaker 1: things that would uh really spur the military to try
Speaker 1: and develop more robust, unmanned aerial vehicles. It also was
Speaker 1: one of the things that critics would point out as saying,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a fool's errand like, we're spending
Speaker 1: a lot of money developing and building these things, but
Speaker 1: if they crash just as frequently as they come back,
Speaker 1: and it's not because of enemy encounters, it is just
Speaker 1: because of the weather, then there have to be better
Speaker 1: use for our resources. So uh, in fact, you could
Speaker 1: argue that drone technology isn't as far along as it
Speaker 1: could be because of things like this. Sure Israel, in fact,
Speaker 1: is was the first country to to develop very modern
Speaker 1: advanced drones in the in the seventies and eighties. They
Speaker 1: developed gliders along the same the same concept as the
Speaker 1: quadrocopters and octocopters that we have these days, called the
Speaker 1: Scout and the Pioneer. The Scout had live video and
Speaker 1: like three sixty degree views views, so I could see
Speaker 1: an entire like all the way around the actual vehicle
Speaker 1: itself right right, and Um, the pioneers the US acquired
Speaker 1: from Israel for use in the Gulf War, gotcha. So now,
Speaker 1: one of the main uses the military has for these
Speaker 1: drones is for surveillance and reconnaissance, and in those cases
Speaker 1: you don't have to necessarily have weapons aboard the drones.
Speaker 1: So absolutely not. And I think that the development of
Speaker 1: most of these in in the US anyway, has has
Speaker 1: been for reconnaissance purposes, and and that weaponizing them has
Speaker 1: been a secondary step taken afterwards, right right, And I
Speaker 1: think I think when it comes to the controversy, while
Speaker 1: reconstance and surveillance of course has its own set of
Speaker 1: I would argue that I think most people when they
Speaker 1: hear about drones are specifically thinking of the weaponized versions.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about those in a minute. Um. And obviously
Speaker 1: those have their own set of really big issues that
Speaker 1: I think merit debate. In fact, and I think all
Speaker 1: of it merits debate, but I think those in particular
Speaker 1: ones that we really got to take a very close
Speaker 1: look at and ask some very tough questions and maybe
Speaker 1: finally get some answers, because that's that's part of the problem.
Speaker 1: That would be good too, But but so so these
Speaker 1: these drones these days, thanks to satellite umplinks have you know,
Speaker 1: you can get live video of a place that would
Speaker 1: be dangerous to send manned forces into, right. And not
Speaker 1: only that, but you can have real time control of
Speaker 1: a drone by someone who is nowhere near that actual
Speaker 1: that actual zone. So, for example, if you need to
Speaker 1: run a drone through a war zone so that you
Speaker 1: can get real time look at what the conditions are
Speaker 1: on the ground, you can send one of these drones
Speaker 1: out and the pilot maybe on the other side of
Speaker 1: the world. Uh. In fact, in the United States, there's
Speaker 1: a desert in Nevada where you can find some of
Speaker 1: the trailers that that the US Air Force uses. And
Speaker 1: the CIA also has its own drone program where the
Speaker 1: pilots are nowhere near where the the actual drone is,
Speaker 1: which means that the risk to pilot life is is
Speaker 1: completely negated. You don't have to worry about the pilot
Speaker 1: being put in danger. Uh if even if the drone
Speaker 1: flies into a truly hot spot of dangerous activity, and
Speaker 1: you can hypothetically save military lives um out in those
Speaker 1: areas by you know, getting information about what what what's
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, so it's you know, really meant to
Speaker 1: maximize data while minimizing risk to human life. And these
Speaker 1: are less expensive than military aircraft or satellites, so it's
Speaker 1: considered to be a better, uh you know, better investment
Speaker 1: in that sense as well. And not only are you
Speaker 1: minimizing the risk to human life, but it's not as
Speaker 1: expensive as something like a YouTube spy plane or a
Speaker 1: spy satellite. Now there's the weaponized version, which is the
Speaker 1: truly problematic one. Not that not that surveillance again is
Speaker 1: you know, we can't give it a free pass. But
Speaker 1: the weaponized ones are the ones that really come under
Speaker 1: scrutiny recently. Um. These are battle drones, so they're armed
Speaker 1: for combat. They actually carry weapons, usually in the form
Speaker 1: of either missiles or bombs or some combination thereof, and
Speaker 1: usually more lightweight missiles or bombs than you would find
Speaker 1: on on manned aircraft. However, yeah, like hell fire missiles.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are still weapons designed to damage. The
Speaker 1: very first use of armed drones were in the Balkans War. UM.
Speaker 1: The Predator drone is an example of a U S
Speaker 1: military unmanned aerial vehicle capable of firing weapons. So it's
Speaker 1: not the only one the UK has the Reaper drone,
Speaker 1: which also can be weaponized, and and we do use
Speaker 1: Reapers in the US as well. That the Predator. Predator
Speaker 1: was originally met for surveillance and was later added. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, the first thing that was added to it
Speaker 1: were targeting lasers and that was before it even had
Speaker 1: weapons on the Predator. It was just sort of a
Speaker 1: next step in the evolution of the Predator from surveillance
Speaker 1: drone to battle drone. And keep in mind that the
Speaker 1: military and the CIA both use these different variations. It's
Speaker 1: not that all drones are weaponized. Uh, that's not the case.
Speaker 1: Some of them are and some of them aren't. UM.
Speaker 1: It all depends upon the parameters of the mission and
Speaker 1: uh and what it is you are trying to actually achieve.
Speaker 1: So usually the way this works is that you've got
Speaker 1: three operators who are controlling the drone. One of them
Speaker 1: is controlling the flight systems, another one, like you said, Lauren,
Speaker 1: is monitoring those cameras and sensors. The third acts as
Speaker 1: a communications officer between the flight crew and the ground
Speaker 1: operations that are closer to the actual war zone, so
Speaker 1: that to keep that line of communication open, so that
Speaker 1: if you notice something with the drone where it's going
Speaker 1: to affect operations in the ground. You can get that
Speaker 1: information to the people who need it immediately and they're
Speaker 1: not going to be surprised by it. UM. So perhaps
Speaker 1: the best known bell drone I guess would be the
Speaker 1: at least in the United States, is the Predator. UM.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen pictures of it. It's it's pretty spooky looking, uh,
Speaker 1: and it is larger, like I said, than you would
Speaker 1: think if you see just a picture of it flying,
Speaker 1: you don't really have anything necessarily to give you the
Speaker 1: scale of this thing. But I've seen pictures of a
Speaker 1: person standing next to them, and it does look like,
Speaker 1: you know, like a fairly small but normal manned vehicle.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like there could be a pilot
Speaker 1: in there, if there were a cockpit. Who just isn't
Speaker 1: it's it's it's weird because the c i A was
Speaker 1: able to really develop a predator program. And when I
Speaker 1: say weird, I mean that you would think that would
Speaker 1: normally fall under the purview of the United States military, right,
Speaker 1: and the Department of Defense did spend some three billion
Speaker 1: in drone research in the nineteen nineties. However, since the
Speaker 1: CIA basically since since the bombings of two thousand one,
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center and attacks. I suppose you you
Speaker 1: would say, since then the CIA kind of took over.
Speaker 1: You kind of used a loophole. Yeah, what what really
Speaker 1: was happening was that the military had run into kind
Speaker 1: of you know, they had consolidated a lot of departments,
Speaker 1: and so the whole drone program now fell under a
Speaker 1: sub department of a sub department of a department, and
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where it is really
Speaker 1: hard to get any kind of funding for the drone program.
Speaker 1: The CIA could sort of sidestep that, and because they're
Speaker 1: not a military organization, they could end up requesting under
Speaker 1: their budget their own drone program. And so that's exactly
Speaker 1: what they did. Um, and that's that's part of the
Speaker 1: reason why it started as a reconnaissance issue and since
Speaker 1: since two thousand one, developed into a targeted strike program. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these predator drones can hover for forty hours before
Speaker 1: needing to refuel. Um, they are kind of uh there.
Speaker 1: They were kind of the evolution of earlier drones developed
Speaker 1: called Amber and NAT. These were drones that were used
Speaker 1: previously but had had their own limitations, including things like
Speaker 1: weather issues with a you know, inclement weather, So the
Speaker 1: Predator was meant to withstand that sort of stuff. UH.
Speaker 1: It was built by a company called General Atomics, and
Speaker 1: UH it uses a SAT calm link up. So that's
Speaker 1: why you can control these all the way out in
Speaker 1: Nevada while the drones themselves are flying around perhaps in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan or Pakistan or something like that. UH. They were
Speaker 1: first flown in June n in the Balkans under Operation
Speaker 1: Nomad Vigil and then in Operation Deliberate Force. And in
Speaker 1: those initial phases it was just surveillance, like we had said.
Speaker 1: But the Air Force and CIA both began to develop
Speaker 1: their Predator piloting programs. The Air Forces is called the
Speaker 1: eleventh Reconnaissance Squadron at Indian Springs Auxiliary Airfield in Nevada,
Speaker 1: which later became known as Creech Air Force Base UH
Speaker 1: and tends to concentrate on on missions in places like Afghanistan. UH.
Speaker 1: In two thousand one, the military began to test the
Speaker 1: Predator drone as a weapon, and by October seventh, two
Speaker 1: thousand one, armed Predator drones were deployed in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: and that was very much in response to the September
Speaker 1: eleventh attacks in two thousand one. UH. Prior to that,
Speaker 1: they were just being used as reconnaissance. But those attacks
Speaker 1: kind of spurred the development of weaponized drones and put
Speaker 1: them on the fast track. And on February four, two
Speaker 1: thousand two, we had the first use of a CIA
Speaker 1: controlled Predator drone using a weapon. And what had happened
Speaker 1: was a drone operator had identified a potential target. They
Speaker 1: saw a tall man in robes and UH it seemed
Speaker 1: to fit the description of Osama bin Laden, which obviously
Speaker 1: was a top target of the c I A. And
Speaker 1: so they the believing that to be Osama bin Laden,
Speaker 1: the drone the pilot of the drone and they fired
Speaker 1: a hellfire missile and it was actually three civilians. UM.
Speaker 1: None of them are were identified as being connected to
Speaker 1: any enemy forces whatsoever. UM. They had been gathering scrap
Speaker 1: metal at the time. Now, they had been gathering scrap
Speaker 1: metal that were from old pieces of missiles, but they were,
Speaker 1: from what I understand, trying to sell those in Pakistan
Speaker 1: for about fifty cents. So it turned out that these
Speaker 1: were appeared to be innocent victims. Although the United States
Speaker 1: government continued to say that that they felt that they
Speaker 1: got that the that firing on the targets were justified.
Speaker 1: They just didn't know who they were, which I thought
Speaker 1: was a weird way of putting it. That seems like
Speaker 1: a poor justification to me personally, and that that is
Speaker 1: kind of what was said by many people afterwards, right,
Speaker 1: And this is this is illustrating very clearly, and you'll
Speaker 1: keep in mind, this is the first use of the
Speaker 1: CIA using a predator drone as a weapon, and the
Speaker 1: very first use is a misidentification, a tragic mistake, and
Speaker 1: that that illustrated very much the criticism that a lot
Speaker 1: of people had. It's that multiple on multiple fronts. One
Speaker 1: uh in this case that they were in a zone
Speaker 1: that had been under contention in the past. So perhaps
Speaker 1: the war zone question will put aside for a moment.
Speaker 1: But the real question is that if you have a
Speaker 1: weapon where you are in no danger at all, that
Speaker 1: the operator of the weapon is in no danger, right,
Speaker 1: there's no risk to the operator whatsoever, does that lower
Speaker 1: the bar to using the weapon because you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about anything, you know, any kind of direct
Speaker 1: consequences as far as a life or death situation, meaning
Speaker 1: that are you more likely to fire a gun if
Speaker 1: it means that there's absolutely no way the other person
Speaker 1: is going to fire back, and that furthermore, are you
Speaker 1: not going to take time to assess the situation responsibly?
Speaker 1: Right if you think that you have a target, are
Speaker 1: you going to act rapidly because you think that you
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to take the target out rather than
Speaker 1: to take the time you would need to assess the situation.
Speaker 1: If your life was at risk, obviously you would be
Speaker 1: assessing the situation very carefully to try and determine your
Speaker 1: best chance of success and survival of that event. And
Speaker 1: maybe in that process you might notice if someone is
Speaker 1: not who you thought they were, in which case you
Speaker 1: would abort the mission and no one would die. Um.
Speaker 1: So there these were some of the objections that were raised,
Speaker 1: saying that this is making it too easy to kill people.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, if it's outside a
Speaker 1: war zone, because the CIA was essentially given carte blanche
Speaker 1: to go and go after what a lot of people
Speaker 1: have called the kill list, a list of people that
Speaker 1: the United States government had identified as top level threats.
Speaker 1: UH if the CIA were to use an unmanned aerial
Speaker 1: vehicle to take out one of those targets in a
Speaker 1: place that's not a war zone. So this is not
Speaker 1: someone who is a soldier fighting a war in the
Speaker 1: traditional sense. Does that not amount to assassination? So how
Speaker 1: is that any different than say, sending out somebody with
Speaker 1: a sniper right full to take another person out in
Speaker 1: the middle of a city. Uh. And and you know
Speaker 1: there's they have no benefit of any sort of trial
Speaker 1: or formal charges. It's just it's just a political assassination.
Speaker 1: In this case, Instead of a sniper with a rifle,
Speaker 1: you're talking about a pilot using a Predator drone and
Speaker 1: that in reality, that's not any difference. So wouldn't that
Speaker 1: mean that this is under international law illegal? And and furthermore,
Speaker 1: isn't it something that shortly before the attacks of September eleventh,
Speaker 1: the the US came down on Israel for for using
Speaker 1: drones for assassinations. Yeah, and so this is I mean,
Speaker 1: this is very tricky. We've got we've we've got government
Speaker 1: officials on record as saying this is not something we
Speaker 1: should do and then immediately authorizing it. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: certainly the fear of terrorism at that time and continually
Speaker 1: is an understandably serious. It's a powerful motivator. Absolutely, it's
Speaker 1: a powerful motive later, and sometimes that means going to
Speaker 1: a course of action that perhaps, in hindsight we would
Speaker 1: say this was not the right choice. UH. The American
Speaker 1: Civil Liberties Union the a c l U condemns these
Speaker 1: actions and have said all right that they are essentially assassinations,
Speaker 1: that people are being killed when they are are not
Speaker 1: in war zones, and that's without charge or trial. And
Speaker 1: they've submitted several Freedom of Information Act requests to the
Speaker 1: government regarding missile strikes and various targets throughout the world,
Speaker 1: and they've cited that in many of these cases, civilians
Speaker 1: have died, children have died as a result of these
Speaker 1: UH these strikes, and they also have kind of met
Speaker 1: with a lot of non answers from the government. They
Speaker 1: await the responses, you know, they're they're going through the
Speaker 1: official government channels and not getting much response. In March,
Speaker 1: Pitch Interactive released a report they they had gotten their
Speaker 1: information from the UH New America Foundation, this saying that
Speaker 1: UM the casualties from from drones in Pakistan alone totaled
Speaker 1: some three thousand, hundred and five people since two thousand four,
Speaker 1: and that that of that UM hundred, seventy five deaths
Speaker 1: were children, five thirty five were adult civilians, over two
Speaker 1: thousand were this gray area of of other they had
Speaker 1: been deemed a military age appropriate men who had been
Speaker 1: termed military combatants, but whether or not they were actually
Speaker 1: involved in in any nefarious military wrongdoing was kind of
Speaker 1: like um and that only forty seven um one point
Speaker 1: five percent of those deaths were high profile targets, and
Speaker 1: there there had been somewhat under a hundred high profile
Speaker 1: targets from what I understand, and so having forty seven
Speaker 1: deaths from that list is is huge. And and however,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, gracious, that's that is just so many people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this is this is an incredibly you know, emotionally
Speaker 1: charged topic obviously, and and should be I mean, this
Speaker 1: is again why we say there should be debate about this,
Speaker 1: and that there needs to be very close scrutiny over
Speaker 1: when it's appropriate or if it ever is appropriate to
Speaker 1: use this. I mean, obviously, anytime we're talking about warfare
Speaker 1: in any capacity, uh, we're talking about the tragic loss
Speaker 1: of human life that kind of comes hand in hand
Speaker 1: with warfare. The problem is that warfare itself has changed
Speaker 1: dramatically since the you know, early twentieth century, when we
Speaker 1: had two sides line up on trenches and shoot at
Speaker 1: each other. Now, identifying who your enemy is and where
Speaker 1: that your enemy happens to be is much more complicated.
Speaker 1: We don't necessarily have huge battalions of soldiers that we're
Speaker 1: having to to aim at. It's it's it's gotten to
Speaker 1: be a very messy situation, and so we've try to
Speaker 1: come up with some solutions to address that. The problem
Speaker 1: is that the solutions may not truly be addressing the
Speaker 1: issue and in fact could be causing far more harm
Speaker 1: than good. And that's where we have to sit there
Speaker 1: and really look and how we're using the technology, who
Speaker 1: is being affected? Are we causing more harm than good?
Speaker 1: And if so, then what can we do instead of that?
Speaker 1: Because obviously that's a course of action. You cannot, you cannot,
Speaker 1: in any good conscience continue that and hope that there's
Speaker 1: going to be a positive outcome. How can there be
Speaker 1: a positive outcome if you're not hitting who you want
Speaker 1: to hit and the people you are hitting are completely innocent,
Speaker 1: you're really there's or or if you've got such a
Speaker 1: high loss of innocent life connected to your targets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's how can you criticize another government or
Speaker 1: regime or however you want to find it, for their
Speaker 1: behaviors if your own behaviors appear at least as if
Speaker 1: you considered an acceptable loss of life to kill the
Speaker 1: entire family someone who your target. Yeah. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously this is and this is obviously, like we said,
Speaker 1: very tricky. It's not. It's not like we're trying to
Speaker 1: say that there is some easy solution that cost not
Speaker 1: and these these hope high profile targeted people were committing atrocities. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and so so it's you know, obviously by international law,
Speaker 1: the the argument is that what should happen is that
Speaker 1: every effort should be made to apprehend the individuals, put
Speaker 1: them on trial, and then have them face their crimes
Speaker 1: in a court of law, as opposed to uh kind
Speaker 1: of striking out and trying to to eliminate them. Uh,
Speaker 1: whether it's in a war capacity or otherwise. Um, whether
Speaker 1: or not that's correct, also, I guess, is a matter
Speaker 1: of debated. It has to be answered by all the
Speaker 1: different countries involved. And like I said, this is pretty
Speaker 1: pretty sticky stuff. It goes pretty far outside the realm
Speaker 1: of just talking about how drones work. But we really
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about this because it's one of those
Speaker 1: topics that had has had a lot of conversation around
Speaker 1: it over the last year or so. Absolutely, and I
Speaker 1: did want to say that in addition to to those
Speaker 1: military uses, UH, drones have also been used, for example,
Speaker 1: to detect detect bombs, which is wonderful and terrific, and
Speaker 1: you know, in in the future they could possibly be
Speaker 1: used to create wireless networks and disaster areas that will
Speaker 1: significantly improve disaster relief. Sure, yeah, there, So it's nothing again,
Speaker 1: just like any technology. We We've said this a lot
Speaker 1: on the on various episodes of tech stuff. It's not
Speaker 1: the technology that's good or bad, it's how we put
Speaker 1: to use. We have to be responsible users of technology,
Speaker 1: and that goes all the way from the individual in
Speaker 1: the case of a parent drone that has a camera
Speaker 1: attached to it, you know what I'm talking about, or
Speaker 1: whether we're talking about a military program or CIA program.
Speaker 1: That level of responsibility is something that we cannot ignore
Speaker 1: or take for granted. I really do believe that, And
Speaker 1: now I'm going to respon honsibly tie up the end
Speaker 1: of this podcast by letting you guys know that if
Speaker 1: you have anything you want to share with us. You
Speaker 1: have a topic that you think we should tackle. Maybe
Speaker 1: you have your own thoughts about the way that drones
Speaker 1: are being used throughout the world. Maybe you want a pizza.
Speaker 1: Let us know. We probably can't get a pizza to you,
Speaker 1: but we're happy to listen and then chat back with you.
Speaker 1: Send us a line over at tech Stuff at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com, or drop us a note on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: You can find our handle there tech Stuff hs W.
Speaker 1: And there's something else I always forget. It's oh right,
Speaker 1: because I don't do that one. We has a tumbler
Speaker 1: you did You did start it and then promptly forgot
Speaker 1: that it even existed. Yes, ore tumbler handle is also
Speaker 1: tex Stuff HSW. Alright, so track us down and h
Speaker 1: take us gently by the shoulder, look us in the eye,
Speaker 1: and tell us what it is you want us to
Speaker 1: to cover next, because we generally want to know. And
Speaker 1: Lauren and I will talk to you again really sick,
Speaker 1: by the way, just do that virtually. We don't really
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