James Bridle:

Drones are avatars of the the political process: they are instantiations of a set of ideologies and beliefs, made visible by their reification in electromechanical systems. When we talk about drones, we are really talking about the politics that demand, shape, and deploy them, and the politics which are made possible by them. This politics reflects the drones themselves: it is a politics of violence, of obfuscation, of radical inequality of sight and action, and it is sustained by that obfuscation and that inequality.

No wonder then that politicians are afraid of even artistic representations of the drone. No wonder they cite feelings of "discomfort" at even mentioning them, although in projecting this discomfort onto an immigrant population -- without consultation -- they reveal even more clearly the complicity of the technology in war and social oppression.

The Victor:

Poor fools! Didn't I tell you that with me what you see is what you get? No? I must have forgotten. Well, what you see is what you elected. Here I am -- your own facile galoot.

The swaggering message machine, the cliché with the rictus grin you saw on your screens -- it is I. Ah, you say, but a robot can't be unctuous? Wrong again! Robots have come a long way.

Bruce Schneier:

We need to relearn how to recognize the trade-offs that come from risk management, especially risk from our fellow human beings. We need to relearn how to accept risk, and even embrace it, as essential to human progress and our free society. The more we expect technology to protect us from people in the same way it protects us from nature, the more we will sacrifice the very values of our society in futile attempts to achieve this security.