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New Yorkers strolling along the East River early last month glanced up to see an unsettling sight: a mysterious drone claiming to represent something called the \u201cAnti-Covid-19 Volunteer Drone Task Force\u201d barking orders to pedestrians below to maintain social distancing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cPlease maintain a social distance of at least six feet,\u201d the drone intoned, according to a report from CBS News, continuing with gloomy warnings, like \u201cplease help stop the spread of this virus\u201d and \u201creduce the death toll and help save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It wasn\u2019t a police drone. Was it a vigilante drone or an aerial white knight? Was it friend or foe?<\/p>\n That\u2019s a highly relevant question about drones in general, which are suddenly everywhere during the coronavirus crisis, taking over any number of human tasks as people hunker indoors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Drones have been working as police officers, soaring over the banks of the Seine in Paris and the city squares of Mumbai, to patrol for social distancing violators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n They\u2019re delivering medical supplies in Rwanda and snacks in Virginia. They\u2019re hovering over crowds China to scan for fevers below.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Coronavirus has been devastating to humans, but may well prove a decisive step toward a long-prophesied Drone Age, when aerial robots begin to shed their Orwellian image as tools of war and surveillance and become a common feature of daily life, serving as helpers and, perhaps soon, companions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cRobots are so often cast as the bad guys,\u201d said Daniel H. Wilson, a former roboticist and the author of the 2011 science fiction novel \u201cRobopocalypse.\u201d \u201cBut what\u2019s happening now is weirdly utopic, as opposed to dystopic. Robots are designed to solve problems that are dull, dirty and dangerous, and now we have a sudden global emergency in which the machines we\u2019re used to fearing are uniquely well suited to swoop in and save the day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n First, however, we\u2019ll have to get past the fears of an actual robopocalypse, with robots of the sky rising up to take over while their wetware-enabled former masters huddle in fear below.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The origins of the \u201cAnti-Covid-19 Volunteer Drone Task Force,\u201d which turned out to be the work of a Queens drone enthusiast, may have confused New Yorkers initially, but in most cities, there is no question who is running the current aerial patrol. Law enforcement officials in cities and towns around the world have been using drones to scan parks, beaches and city squares for violators wandering into the safe spaces of others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In China, drones have served as educators or enforcers, depending on your point of view, alerting citizens with unsettlingly folksy warnings about virus violations in robotic voices from above, as reported by CNN.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYes auntie, this is the drone speaking to you,\u201d said one drone, speaking to an elderly woman below in an eerie bullhorn echo<\/a>, according to a video published by Global Times, a state-controlled newspaper. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t walk about without wearing a mask.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Global Times also published an account of another drone. A voice from above castigated a small child peering skyward while seated with a man who was violating quarantine rules by playing mahjong in public: \u201cDon\u2019t look at the drone, child. Ask your father to leave immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The idea of a government eye in the sky doesn\u2019t always play so well in the United States, where personal liberty is a founding precept taken very seriously in many regions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cCovid-19? More like Covid-1984,\u201d read one recent Reddit post on a thread about police drones flying over encampments of homeless people in cities such as Fort Worth, and Chula Vista, Calif., blasting them with messages about coronavirus prevention. \u201cIt really feels like we are living in some dystopian science fiction novel,\u201d read another.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cDid the drone fly over blueprints for a light saber?\u201d another commenter fired back. \u201cNot everything is a conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But automated oversight can be a blunt instrument. A police drone deployed in Fairfield, Conn., to monitor beaches for social distancing also warned a group of \u201cjuveniles\u201d trespassing on the roof of a local elementary school, according to one news account.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe big concern is that the coronavirus crisis is going to normalize drones and entrench them in American life,\u201d said Jay Stanley, a privacy and technology specialist for the A.C.L.U. \u201cThe fear is many of these incursions on freedom will outlast the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While a drone itself is just a tool, neither inherently good nor evil, it is a tool with nearly unlimited powers for surveillance, Mr. Stanley added. Drones can be equipped with so-called stingrays to collect information from people\u2019s mobile phones, night-vision cameras, GPS sensors, radar, lidar (laser detection technology for creating three-dimensional maps of an area), as well as thermal and infrared cameras.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Enough people distrust drones that \u201cdrone rage\u201d incidents between drone enthusiasts and citizens who do not wish to be filmed from above have become a regular occurrence, Mr. Stanley said. One Colorado town even proposed a tongue-in-cheek ordinance in 2014 allowing citizens to shoot down drones invading their airspace, a proposal that itself was shot down by the F.A.A.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Resistance to pandemic patrol drones has not been confined to privacy watchdogs on the political left. On the right, outlets like Breitbart have also noted that many of the drones surveilling our cities are made in China, often by DJI, the world\u2019s largest drone manufacturer, whose headquarters are in Shenzhen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some Republican officials have made the same point.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing drones, donated by a Chinese company, to spy on Americans during the #coronavirus<\/a> pandemic?\u201d read a tweet from the official House Judiciary Republicans<\/a> account. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t seem like a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Drones have other uses besides snooping, of course. They have stepped (or soared) up as aerial virus blasters, with authorities in countries around the world \u2014 China, Dubai, Indonesia, France, as well as the United States \u2014 using them to sanitize city streets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n (It\u2019s up to you to decide if government drones spraying cities for pathogens sounds creepy.)<\/p>\n Drones are also performing crucial roles on the medical front lines that may be described as humanitarian \u2026 if they were performed by humans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis is the moment when the drone industry gets to show what it can do,\u201d said Miriam McNabb, the editor of Dronelife, an industry news site, and the C.E.O. of Job for Drones, an online drone services marketplace. \u201cThings like drone delivery are lifesaving applications that are changing people\u2019s perceptions of drones.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Zipline, a San Francisco-based start-up founded in 2014 that airdrops medical supplies and ferries tests from more than 1,000 hospitals in Ghana and Rwanda by drone, replacing the need for face-to-face contact.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Zipline\u2019s fixed-wing drones have already made 30,600 deliveries of medical products in those countries since the start of the pandemic, the company said: lately delivering cancer drugs, for example, to patients in remote villages who are unable to travel to oncology centers because of quarantine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cZipline are the heroes of drone delivery,\u201d Ms. McNabb said. \u201cIn parts of Rwanda, where road infrastructure doesn\u2019t support delivery, it\u2019s either three days on the back of a motorbike or 15 minutes by drone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the United States they are at last delivering more quotidian consumer items too, as long dreamed by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In April of 2019, Wing, a drone-delivery service owned by Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet, received the first Federal Aviation Administration approval for commercial package delivery, starting in Christiansburg, Va., a town of about 22,000, which is near Wing\u2019s testing facility at nearby Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. (Wing is also operating in Helsinki, Finland, as well as Canberra and Logan in Australia.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Wing\u2019s home deliveries of medications from Walgreens have proved particularly popular with quarantined seniors who are most at risk, said Jonathan Bass, a Wing spokesman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of the few emerging technologies that has attracted a lot of early adopters over the age of 65,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But Wing is also starting to out-Amazon Amazon, delivering must-have items like toilet paper and groceries. Merchandise is kept at a central Wing facility, and orders can be made through the Wing app, which allows customers to chart progress of their drone on a map, as with Uber or Lyft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While useful for temporary shut-ins, drone delivery has served as a lifeline for small businesses dealing with a collapse in foot traffic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe first two weeks after Covid hit were rough; it felt like somebody put the e-brake on,\u201d said Luke Brugh \u2014 conveniently pronounced \u201cbrew,\u201d as he owns Brugh Coffee Co. in Christiansburg with his wife, Cassie. Wing, he said, has allowed them to double the sales of canned cold brew, which has helped make up for the loss.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And this may just be the beginning. Just as World War II hurried the development of emerging technologies like computers, rocketry, jet aircraft and atomic energy, the pandemic may speed the development, and adoption of, drone technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMajor world events can alter technological development cycles, causing them to accelerate or to slow down,\u201d said Richard Yonck, the founder of Intelligent Future Consulting in Seattle and a former board member of the Association of Professional Futurists. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing that now with drones and other automation in response to the pandemic. There\u2019s a push to develop new tools that can reduce people\u2019s exposure to the virus. What can we automate and by how much?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOf course, this could also accelerate future job losses,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich is something we\u2019d have to deal with down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On a Tuesday night in April, a company called Verge Aero flew 140 illuminated drones in the sky above the University of Pennsylvania. The drones performed as synchronized points of light as they formed giant hearts, medical crosses and American flags, as part of the #PhillyShinesBlue and global #LightItBlue campaigns honoring health care professionals and other essential workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This 21st-century equivalent of a fireworks display was a case of drones serving to uplift, as opposed to, you know, simply lift \u2014 or spray, or fire missiles, or seize human jobs in an economy where unemployment is nearing Great Depression levels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And it also may prove to be one of many examples of the pandemic helping to make drones seem more endearing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During the lockdown, drones have also shown their potential as investigative reporters, bringing to light heart-wrenching stories like the mass graves for unclaimed bodies of Covid-19 victims on Hart Island in New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The footage was shot by a photographer, George Steinmetz, whose drone was confiscated by police for photographing the island without permission from the city\u2019s Department of Correction. It was widely shared, illustrating the death toll beyond the statistics in Governor Cuomo\u2019s daily briefing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And at a time when professional storytellers \u2014 novelists, bloggers and many journalists \u2014 find themselves walled off to the global story around them, drones have pierced the veil of quarantine. They have created hauntingly poetic imagery of countless empty cities \u2014 San Francisco; Las Vegas; Wuhan, China \u2014 that says as much about loss in the coronavirus age as any written account.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cDrones sell this idea of emptiness, this lack of life better than anything,\u201d said Dexter Kennedy, 29, a drone photographer in Hoboken, N.J., who has been shooting aerial footage of abandoned streets in Philadelphia, as well as the empty boardwalks of Atlantic City and Jersey City during the lockdown.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou get 100 feet up and you can really see the big picture,\u201d Mr. Kennedy said. \u201cA boardwalk that would normally have thousands of people on it is totally empty. All the rides are empty. The Ferris wheel is not moving. You can see the grid patterns of the street, but no one\u2019s out. It looks like an apocalypse movie.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Kennedy, 29, is also the director of flight operations at Flying Monster, a drone production company that has shot footage for numerous television shows and films, including \u201cWatchmen,\u201d \u201cMr. Robot\u201d and Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner\u2019s upcoming \u201cWest Side Story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Kennedy sees a big expansion of drone duties in Hollywood, should suspended productions resume with new social distancing measures in place. Drones can perform location scouting remotely, he said, minimize the need for crew members to share camera equipment and even allow a director to orchestrate aerial scenes from home, with a remote feed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cUp to this point, drones have been kind of a luxury for Hollywood,\u201d Mr. Kennedy said. \u201cNow I think they\u2019re moving into the \u2018necessity\u2019 category.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As drones work their way further into the dream factory of Hollywood, they may also insinuate themselves further into our imagination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n We\u2019ve seen it before. As the age of robotics dawned in the mid-20th century, popular culture churned out sympathetic, humanoid robots, like the Rosey the robot maid in the 1960s television show \u201cThe Jetsons,\u201d or the robot in \u201cLost in Space,\u201d which helped make an unsettling new technology seem friendly and approachable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The boom to the drone industry during the pandemic comes at a point when drones were already poised to creep so far into our daily lives that techno-futurists are fretting about \u201crobot smog\u201d \u2014 drones as a new form of air pollution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Developers have created drones as jogging companions, barking out encouragement to the sweat drenched, and someday, perhaps, pet sitters, if one IBM patent comes to fruition. Drones with human feelings, meanwhile, are a running gag in The Onion, as with the recent headline \u201cU.S. Claims Drone Was Minding Own Business on Its Way to Church When Iran Attacked It Out Nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If and when the pandemic ever ends, we may develop an unimagined kinship with our aerial assistants, just as we have with other types of robots.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Granted, he said, the marketplace has shown little interest in robots that do not perform valuable tasks. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough for a robot to be cute or inspirational, it has to solve a problem before people will fall in love,\u201d Mr. Wilson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Once the robot does, though, \u201cthe human mind will find a way to include it in the landscape of our lives,\u201d he said, just as some supermarket employees have attached cute, googly eyes on the inventory robots they work alongside.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In a sense, they have no choice. As with drones in the age of coronavirus, Mr. Wilson said, \u201cthe robots aren\u2019t going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nEye in the Sky<\/h2>\n
Invading the Dream Factory<\/h2>\n