The coming age of assassin kamikaze drones
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a… kamikaze drone! In 2008, the air force research laboratory set out to create a machine that could kill two birds with one drone. The kamikaze drone would be programmed to identify and kill a person, self-destructing on impact. Although these killing machines sound like creatures of fiction, the age of the kamikaze drone is quickly coming upon us.(1)
The project that set out to create the kamikaze drone was dubbed “Anubis,” which is fittingly named after the dog-headed Egyptian god of death. That’s right: Anubis is programmed to determine who should live and who should die. The military has remained silent in regard to what happened to Project Anubis. However, military budget documents note that the air force successfully developed “a Micro-Air Vehicle (MAV) with innovative seeker/tracking sensor algorithms that can engage maneuvering high-value targets.”(1)
Kamikaze drones sidestep problems of larger drones
The MAV was designed cut through several problems facing larger drones. Larger drones carry the risk of assassinating the wrong targets. In 2002, for instance, a large drone launched a Hellfire missile at an individual in Afghanistan believed to be Osama bin Laden. In actuality, the man was an innocent Afghan peasant whose height was close to that of bin Laden. In contrast, a kamikaze drone would have a video attached to it, which would verify the identity of the target prior to striking.(1)
