Drone culture: perspectives on autonomy and anonymity
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Drone culture: perspectives on autonomy and anonymity Garfield Benjamin1 Received: 31 July 2019 / Accepted: 6 July 2020 © Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This article addresses the problematic perspectives of drone culture. In critiquing focus on the drone’s apparent ‘autonomy’, it argues that such devices function as part of a socio-technical network. They are relational parts of human–machine interaction that, in our changing geopolitical realities, have a powerful influence on politics, reputation and warfare. Drawing on Žižek’s conception of parallax, the article stresses the importance of culture and perception in forming the role of the drone in widening power asymmetries. It examines how perceptions of autonomy are evoked by drones, to claim that this misperception is a smokescreen that obscures the relational socio-technical realities of the drone. The article therefore argues that a more critical culture of the drone emerges by shifting the focus and perception from autonomy to anonymity. This allows us to engage more fully with the distributed agency and decision-making that define how drones are developed and deployed. Rather than focusing on the drone as a singular, fetishised, technical object, a relational approach to the drone assemblage is proposed that highlights the competing human interests that define and resist drones in global politics and culture. Keywords Drone · UAV · Culture · Parallax · Simulation · Assemblage · Relational · Socio-technical
1 Introduction Drones have a problematic relation to existing human social and political structures. They exist high above everyday human reality in a space of vectors and virtuality. They are at once singular and multiple, controlled and autonomous, tool and agent, identifiable and anonymous. Their shifting and elusive nature is part of what makes them powerful and terrifying; it is this apparent indeterminacy that defines how drones fit into contemporary politics and culture. Perhaps the most prominent issue currently raging across industry, academia and government is the issue of autonomy, with calls for regulation or banning (Future of Life Institute 2015) not only of autonomous drones, but also related autonomous algorithmic decision-making in machine learning systems such as facial recognition (Stark 2019). But in the gaps between the tensions, dichotomies and debates surrounding drones and AI, between the technical, legal, political, economic and military systems that constitute these machinic agents, lie the broader implications and impact of how * Garfield Benjamin [email protected] 1
Solent University, East Park Terrace, Southampton SO14 0YN, UK
drones are understood in social contexts: in short, drone culture. Culture is the medium through which technological, social and political norms are created, enacted and perpetuated to condition expectations and reactions. The place of drones in society evolves as part of how drones are situated in broader technocultures, a comp
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