Drone warfare: a robotic future?
Date: Monday 30th March 2015
Time: 7pm
Venue: the Victorian Bar, Tron Theatre
Speaker: Ian Shaw
The world has woken up in the middle of a science-fiction present. Military pilots controlling unmanned drones called ‘Predators’ and ‘Reapers’ are able to track, target and eliminate human beings from thousands of miles away. Multi-million pound technological developments are creating drones capable of flying autonomously and co-operating in intelligent swarms. In a frank assessment, the Ministry of Defence (2011) warns that 'There is a danger that time is running out – is debate and development of policy even still possible, or is the technological genie already out of the ethical bottle, embarking us all on an incremental and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality?' There is so much at stake in the age of the drone: what are the ethical and moral implications of robotic killings? Why are the traditional assumptions of geopolitics insufficient for understanding the rise of the machine? What is next for human security?
About the speaker:
Ian Shaw is a ESRC Future Research Leader in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
Find out more:
Dr Ian Shaw