Lawfare Archive: Missy Cummings on Drones, Drones, Drones
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2021
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From March 3, 2012: Missy Cummings, Director of the Humans and Automation Laboratory and a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, sat down with Ritika Singh for the fifth episode of the Lawfare Podcast to talk about robots on our battlefields.
Cummings is a bit of a force of nature. In addition to designing unmanned weapons systems, she was one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots—an experience she chronicles in her book “Hornet's Nest.”
There are currently around 20,000 robots deployed in U.S. theaters of operation. These robots, which are getting cheaper and easier to make, are characterized by increasing capability and increasing miniaturization. Missy and Ritika discussed the many issues to which these developments give rise, as well as where the science and engineering in weapons systems is likely to go in the future.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm Jacob Schultz and this is the LawFair podcast, New Year's Eve, December 31st. |
| 0:46.0 | Today, we're reaching into the archives. |
| 0:49.0 | Way back to bringing you an episode from March 3rd, 2012, |
| 0:54.0 | the fifth ever episode of LawFair podcast. |
| 0:57.0 | In this episode, Ritik is saying former LawFair associate editor, |
| 1:01.0 | interviews Missy Cummings, who works on aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, |
| 1:06.0 | to talk about drones and more generally about robots on the battlefield. |
| 1:11.0 | It's a great interview, well worth your time over a holiday weekend. |
| 1:33.0 | Hello and welcome to the LawFair podcast. |
| 1:35.0 | I'm Benjamin Wittis. |
| 1:37.0 | Our subject today is drones, drones and more drones. |
| 1:42.0 | And with us to discuss them is well just about the coolest person on the face of the planet. |
| 1:49.0 | Missy Cummings is a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, |
| 1:55.0 | where she directs the humans and automation laboratory. |
| 1:58.0 | She also was one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots. |
| 2:03.0 | Oftentimes in LawFair's discussions of targeted killing and military robotics, |
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