Future Dreams, Theme 2: Robots & Flying Drones

Nearly a year ago I began a series on the repeating dreams of the future I had from age 4 or 5 through the recent past. They’ve slowed down considerably over the last decade or more, but my youth and early adulthood I had them all the time.

The first dream of that series about hot weather and disrupted electric service here:

Today’s subject is about ubiquitous robots and flying drones in those future dreams. Why was I inspired to write about it now? Well, unless you live under a rock, you may have heard about Amazon and UPS wanting to begin using flying drones to deliver light packages directly to people’s homes very quickly without using trucks and deliverymen. They’ve announced that they’re in testing phase now. They don’t expect to begin for another 4 to 5 years. For one thing, a whole new set of laws and regulations for private and commercial use of drones have to be written and implemented.

Another news item, less seen but no less appropriate for the future dreams I’m about to discuss are the roaming security robots that several companies want to start using instead of security guards. These rolling vaguely phallic-shaped devices weigh about 300 pounds and record both sights and sounds– like mobile security cameras with better clarity and microphones. These are also in development and testing phases, and — just as with drones– privacy activists are warning us that yet more of our human rights will be eroded. For one thing, both drones and “guard-bots” will likely be targeted by vandals, thieves, thrill-seekers, and activists and already they’re talking about these devices having “self-protective security.” Not just recording people who might attempt to take them out, but maybe things like taser-capability. Developers are also excited about giving these devices some limited A.I. (artificial intelligence) in order to assess situations and maneuver during unexpected events and confrontations.

And– according to my future dreams, it’ll be full steam ahead on this aspect of things, so expect bots and drones to become very common in the future– AND to become a problem!

I’ve talked about the extreme weather and electrical service disruptions already, but in addition, one of the major concerns I kept running into in these dreams was – a feeling of being potentially harassed by remote or limited A.I. bots everywhere in cities and suburbs. You saw them in the air the most often (probably because they were just more visible overhead) delivering things, or watching for “security” By this time, the United States, and indeed the entire civilized world was in prolonged crisis and obvious decline (more on this in future dream theme posts). America the Free had become America the Police State. People bitched. People rebelled. People even protested sometimes– but it all came to nothing. When you were in populations centers, your privacy expectations ended.

Again, for most of this period, I was living quietly out in the rural areas mostly and so side-stepped most issues involving these things until the tail end of the scenario. Let’s just say the life I’m living now segues into that pretty handily. I knew what to expect and so wasn’t overly concerned for most of the time. Yet I also watched and waited for the time coming when things would get more serious for me personally.

Further along still, the bots and drones became more rare, but more sophisticated and dangerous. Only a small number of elite military agencies had access and used them for very specific purposes. When things got really interesting (more on that eventually) they attempted to collect information on and aided capture of certain people. I ended up at some point during this period on the move and homeless. I was connected in my own way though to others with similar issues. That was when dealing with the occasional robot became a real pain. Sort of adventurous in a sci-fi way by today’s standards, but it was sticky going there for a while.

Seeing the very recent news reports on all these more automated, mobile and semi-autonomous robotic devices just brought it all home again. I started having dreams about these things in the 70s. NOW I see they’re about to be a part of our lives. Does that then mean that the rest of the timeline will also come to pass? I don’t know. I have my doubts AND my faiths about it. I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?