The Watchbirds Were A Bad Mistake

Robert Sheckley was once described as 'science fiction's premier gadfly'. His science fictional satires on the human condition circa 1950s were far more influential than the stories of much better or at least more literary writers of that time and have inspired more quite recent SF films than most people realise. Sheckley liked to imagine what would happen if fallible human beings tried to create utopia in their own flawed image or relied too much on new fangled machinery. Watchbird was a remarkably prescient story about drone technology, and what might happen if autonomous drones with on board AIs were used to police violent behaviour in public spaces. We are now so close to having autonomous, armed drones flying over our battle fields that this prospect should frighten people more than it seems to presently.

On a lighter note, I was thinking of calling this piece 'Time Has come Today' as an excuse to link to this moth eaten psychedelic soul single from The Chambers Brothers www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfgoJ… .