Fuck war and fuck robots only designed for narrow killing tasks, imagine what this machine can do for livesaving missions all over the world!!!
The absolutely ESSENTIAL thing to keep in mind here is that these machines are immediate lifesaving gifts to humanity no matter how mature the technology is since in situations where a traditional human rescue crew in a helicopter or otherwise that are too dangerous to attempt a rescue there is now another option that can be tried repeatedly without the risk of anyone dying. There is of course the risk of the aircraft crashing with the rescue victim on it, and that needs to be treated seriously but again… when we are talking about no other options that is simply a risk that has to be taken.
Additionally once this technology becomes mature and extremely safe this might actually be a very practical method of moving people with spinal injuries (or who are otherwise very physically frail) who can’t have their back moved from a straight position and because of other injuries cannot be safely jostled around over rough terrain on a stretcher.
All this rescue method would involve is movement of the victim on to the stretcher of the aircraft and then it could fly a short distance out of an area of exceedingly rough terrain and land, then allowing another method of transportation to take the victim the rest of the way. In this way there are lots of rescue situations that this category of aircraft might be useful in that are not immediately obvious and could also facilitate a high volume of rescue even though this aircraft can only carry a single person at a time.
…crossing the strait of Georgia in a timely fashion. It’s only like 40km but the mercenary ferry service is just unreliable and flaky.
I’ll do this every day if it gets me there today.