Danger Room writes How to Prevent Drone Pilot PTSD: Blame the 'Bot. "The human operators who control America’s killer drones are susceptible to the same psychological stress that infantrymen sometimes experience after combat. But better drones and control systems could help reduce the controllers’ stress levels — by allowing the people to blame the robots for the awful human cost of remote air strikes."
Ok, I've seen previous reports about this:
"For drone operators, many of whom live in the U.S. and steer their armed drones via satellite from air-conditioned trailers, combat stress can be accentuated by the contrast between their jobs and their otherwise peaceful surroundings. “You shoot a missile, you kill a handful of people,” Missy Cummings, an MIT drone developer and former pilot, told Salon. “And then — this is what is strange — you go home. Your shift is over.” When you fight in a war without living in a combat zone, “it’s harder to keep it in perspective,” Cummings said."
But this seems ridiculous:
"A more independent drone could alert its controller for assistance only when it has spotted a likely target. The operator would give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down for the robot to fire a weapon. With only minimal involvement, the human being could avoid feeling fully responsible for the consequences of the strike. Drones are already becoming more autonomous by the day, opening the door for a different emotional dynamic between them and their operators. Another guilt-avoidance tactic is to anthropomorphize the drone, Calo adds. It turns that robots that look more human can inspire many of the same emotions that actual people do in each other."
I don't doubt there's (possibly) some truth to it, but then again it sounds like they're arguing that we should make our soldiers think that guns kill people and it's not the people doing it. That sounds a bit scary.
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