The View from 22 - Drone wars and Olympic triumphs

Are flying killing robots about to change our lives? Mary Wakefield interviews technology expert turned thriller writer Daniel Suarez in this week’s magazine, who believes the day of killing drones is fast approaching. In our latest View from 22 podcast, Mary examines the fast approaching juncture faced over drone warfare:

‘One of these [fast approaching technologies] is giving drones, which are military planes without pilots, the ability to make decisions to kill themselves. At the moment, drones are piloted by remote control operators — young kids with joysticks in the Nevada desert — but they’ve got the technology now to let the drones decide to kill things.

So you wouldn’t even need a guy with a joystick and a red button, the drone itself would be cruising around Afghanistan and Pakistan killing at will with face recognition technology. That’s the point at which Suarez says we’ve got to stop, rein back and think whether this ok and what we want.’

Freddy Gray presents our handy pocket guide to the remaining Olympic sports, as well as the games’ economic effect on London and the empty seats controversy. James Forsyth also discusses his political column on what the Olympic triumphs mean for the career of the man making the very most of them — the Mayor of London.Will Boris’ grandstanding be enough to make him a serious challenge to David Cameron? Listen with the embedded player below to hear our analysis. You can also have the latest podcast delivered straight to your computer by subscribing through iTunes. As ever, we’d love to hear what you think, good or bad.