IoT devices and Military

IoT devices have been a common discussion within the tech spaces recently due to their power and potential. Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the idea that everyday items could be connected to the internet and be used for automation/data collection purposes. IoT devices are small devices that could be implemented for such purposes and it is expected that there will be 30 billion devices by 2025.

As it is with every technology, there is always a use for the US military. In the case of IoT devices, it has already been implemented in a sense since the US military has been using swarms of IoT drones to survey the battle arenas. In fact, like many technologies, the military has been one of the earliest adopters of this technology as well as its biggest propeller.

However, there has been recent developments in this area: Project Mavin. Project Mavin has been developed by Google to help the military develop devices, gather data, use AI to sift through the data and make battle decisions. The natural question that extends from this statement is, “Would they make robots that make autonomous decisions to fire a weapon?”. That’s right. We are talking about potential development of killer robots.

I think the most important part, however, is not “will they develop consciousness and start killing us?”, but “how many innocent people have died already from the existing use of these devices and how can we stop that?”.