[DemonRaven]

I laughed at the story until i read it and realised that too much information sharing can sometimes be a bad thing.

3-D PRINTING WILL DISRUPT THE WORLD IN WAYS WE CAN BARELY IMAGINE


http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/3-d-printing-will-disrupt-the-world-in-ways-we-can-barely-imagine/

""The implications of additive manufacturing for the battlefield are immense. Researchers at the University of Virginia have 3-D-printed a drone in a single day and by adding an Android phone made it autonomous — all for $2,500. Using artificial intelligence available today, such a drone could identify a distinct object such as an aircraft or fuel truck using on board multi-spectral imaging before engaging it with an explosively formed projectile. In short, autonomous, cheap weapons systems will range for miles, hunting and engaging specific targets. Think of them as IEDs that hunt you. If aspirations for greater printing speed are met, a factory with only 100 printers and sufficient raw materials could produce 10,000 such autonomous drones a day. The implications for ground forces are obvious — ""

In other words anyone including terrorists could use it.

[Don Patrick]

I have some skepticisms to this story of course.
1. Explosives are heavy and you'd need a pretty big and consequently loud drone to carry it. The big ones in the stores are made of styrofoam just so they can lift their own weight.
2. Do Android devices come with multi-spectral imaging? Are there military computer vision apps in the i-store? I've programmed some computer vision and I wouldn't trust a phone cam to distinguish a cow from a truck unless a genius made the software.
3. You still need to get the explosives, I'd say that alone is the dangerous part. You could also put some explosives on a skateboard, run it downhill and blow up a house remotely.

I would think that buying a drone and remotely steering it with a smartphone is a cheaper option. As soon as people start using drones as weapons, I think we'll quickly see a ban, and install sky-watching A.I. webcams on all military targets as early warning systems.
Drones are also really fragile and it wouldn't take more than trained pigeons to take them out.

The one danger I do take more serious is that you can print a working gun.

[DemonRaven]

Well it depends on how big the drone was which it does not mention. Drones can vary from the type home owners buy to the one that the military uses. If it was big enough then yes you could create one that would cause problems.