Drone “pilots.” That’s an important word here.
And an excellent segue into starting a nomenclatural geekfight. Here goes:

Drones, while they have some autonomous robotic features, are not in and of themselves robots. No more than like, you know, commercialy available cars – complete with cruise control and automatic windshield wipers and auto-dimming headlights. If current military drones, those in use – not the U.S. Air Force’s & U.S. Navy’s research platforms, if those are robots with pilots, then so is a Toyota Corolla.

So where’s the distinction?

Probably this:

“Killer Robots Watching and Raining Death from Above”
[click, click, click, click, click…, reshare, click, Like, Tweet]

Disingenuous hyperbole sure does get the pageviews, and the ajournalistic bandwaggony rhetoric is likely to continue, but it’s irresponsible, misleading, and inaccurate – and should be called out and made fun of at every possible juncture.

Reno J. Tibke
www.anthrobotic.com
www.akihabaranews.com