Why?
As a starting point, I was raised to think guns are bad. And psychologically I am fearful of even low tech firearms. Whether the two are related is unknown, however the phobia is real.
This goes beyond a phobia of encountering them personally - I am fearful for the results weapons bring upon humanity. And think that the time and energy spent on creating instruments of destruction would be better spent elsewhere.
I understand this is marketed as a hunting rifle. I eat meat. I understand some people like to hunt. Yet I am fearful of the repercussions of technology like this being used outside of the realm of hunting things like deer - for example, being used to hunt things like humans.
I am also fearful of this because it showed up at CES. It costs $17k. Its hooked up to an iPad. I know this specific model is not rigged to fire without manual operation. But someone with enough knowledge to hack something like this, but not build one from scratch, can do nasty things. So in 10 or 15 years, when the price point is down, and remote servos and triggers are off the shelf toys for the iPad8, this thing becomes a toy sentry.
I have a vivid imagination too, and some of it is dystopian future stuff. So that probably explains a lot.
Now I have a question for you: Does this scare you? And if not, then why?
(I could be wrong though.)
Guns in general don't scare me, because I see them as tools that generally have a lot more positive effect than negative effect. There will always be bad people who would do others harm, whether with guns or with something else.
If guns didn't exist in America, the next crazy person who wants to go out in a blaze of ignominy will just drive his car into a crowd, or make homemade explosives, or something else. Guns give the good guys a fighting chance, leveling the playing field. And by "good guy" here I mean both the unassuming guy who carries a concealed handgun every day (me, for example) as well as the 90-pound girl who protects herself from a home invasion. (To say nothing of the whole defense-against-tyranny thing.)
Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox about all that. This gun in particular doesn't scare me because there are already far more practical and cheaper ways to do bad things. If you want to throw servos and a camera on a rifle, you can do that today. It doesnt need to be something that compensates for wind speed, and you won't use a bolt-action rifle if your goal is to kill a bunch of people remotely. Or you just build a bomb or something, like I said above.
From Wikipedia, school shootings in Europe in this century, last two numbers are killed and wounded:
R., Georg, 18, Sep. 17 2009, Germany, 0, 10-15
Kretschmer, Tim, 17, March 11, 2009, Germany, 15, 9-13
De Gelder, Kim, 20, Jan. 16/23,, 2009, Belgium, 4, 12
Saari, Matti Juhani, 22, Sep. 23, 2008, Finland, 10, 1-3
Auvinen, Pekka-Eric, 18, Nov. 7, 2007, Jokela, Finland, 8, 1
Bosse, Bastian, 18, Nov. 20, 2006, Germany, 0, 22
Steinhäuser, Robert, 19, April 26, 2002, Germany, 16, 1
Merah, Mohammed, 23, March 11–22, 2012, Toulouse & Montauban, France, 7, 8
Amrani, Nordine, 33, Dec. 13, 2011, Liège, Belgium, 6, 123 (he also used grenades)
Breivik, Anders Behring, 32, July 22, 2011, Norway, 75, 242 (a bomb killed 8)
van der Vlis, Tristan, 24, April 9, 2011, Netherlands, 6, 17
Radmacher, Sabine, 41, Sep. 19, 2010, Germany, 3, 18 (arson was also used)
Bird, Derrick, 52, June 2, 2010, United Kingdom, 12, 11
Sacco, Angelo Secondo, 54, June 28, 2005, Italy, 3, 9
Antonello, Mauro, 40, Oct. 15, 2002, Italy, 7
Durn, Richard, 33, March 27, 2002, France, 8, 19
Selamet, Ozan, 42, Jan. 18, 2002, Belgium, 6 (2 strangled)
Roux-Durrafourt, Jean-Pierre, 44, Oct. 29, 2001, France, 4, 7
Leibacher, Friedrich, 57, Sep. 27, 2001, Switzerland, 14, 18
Kaya, Hakan, 24, Dec. 22, 2000, Germany, 6I'm talking about companies' priorities. So someone talks about social things and you assume that they are talking about big daddy government? There are plenty of companies that make profit AND also make research for the common good and not how to kill each other better.
I mentioned those things because they are the most obvious and possibly important... but there are more subjects like environment, education, mass transport, open governments, factory automation, communications... that could do with more research.
Also, not all the profit should be monetary. Who are you gonna charge that money when there is no people left that can spend it?
No "social profit" -> no people -> no business. Your clients should be your interest not your product.
Bottom line: An "effing" waste of resources!
The profit motive is what drives private enterprise, and I have no problem with that. If something can be developed and marketed profitably, I think it's a stretch to call it a waste of resources.