Abstract

“Is there racism against drones?” The moderator of a panel at DARC, the Drones and Aerial Robotics Conference in New York City last autumn, was attempting to summarize a question from the audience. A technologist in a suit had just contrasted the racial makeup of drone attack victims to a misconception that all unmanned aircraft are equipped with Hellfire missiles. “Did you know the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk is actually unarmed and used for surveillance?” he asked the speakers on stage. “Do you think the same racism that gets applied to people that we don’t know enough about is applied to drones because people don’t know enough about them?” It wasn’t the only accusation of bigotry toward technology that day.

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