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Comment by ruswick | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. So far, I've seen nothing but specious fear-mongering and nonsensical "what-if" arguments against this thing.

I can understand why people doubt the feasibility of drone delivery, especially given the legal impediments to adoption. Frankly, I doubt that this type of service will be practical within four years. What I can't understand is why people openly reject the idea of drones.

I don't see how Prime Air is any less safe or efficient than sending thousands of five-ton metal boxes barreling down residential streets. I don't see why a five-pound piece of plastic falling from the sky poses an appreciably greater risk than a branch falling on you. I don't see how people can draw parallels between small, low-altitude consumer drones and military UAVs. The level of fear surrounding this announcement makes no sense.

The response to Prime Air goes far beyond skepticism. It's incoherent, fanatical pessimism, and it's really dissapointing.

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Law students (most) take a class called Criminal Procedure that heavily covers 4th, 5th, and (to a smaller extent) 6th amendment jurisprudence. I took it in 2011 when drones were really heavy in the news cycle. Our final exam was solely on drones and how their adoption would effect/be effected by 4th amendment considerations.

So with all that said, I really really hate the idea of drones. They get places humans cannot. They're expected in places *humans cannot be. These places are protected right now. Just putting drones in operation (especially in the hands of the public) means every single bit of the public up to the point of actually suctioning cup on your window is possibly fair game. Of course, I hope that reasonable regulations are at play but I am pessimistic about it. I think people will want their taco drones and their 30 min Amazon delivery MORE than they want to hear how it might impact their privacy.

So it's not safety, it's not "oh no, they're like the military now". It's purely the loss of private airspace that still remains and the potential to abuse it audio/visual wise.

I can already buy a little quadcopter, attach a camera to it, and fly it around; the relevant regulations here are just about commercial use, right?

That's actually a minor quibble with your argument, though. My real problem is this: you're skeptical that they won't be regulated enough, so you want them regulated out of existence? Your solution is a bit like saying, "well, the NSA will be able to spy on our network connections, so let's just not have an internet." If you want good tech policy, you need to support good tech policy, not just throw your hands up and say, "there could be adverse consequences, so no new technology!" Otherwise we'll never get anywhere.

Yes, the relevant regulations are about commercial use which is COMPLETELY backwards from a privacy standpoint.

To answer your question, no, I don't want drones to not exist and it would not be worthwhile if I did. Since they obviously do and will continue to exist, we should be thinking about the privacy considerations first with regards to how you would restrict the government's use of drones and THEN go on to the commercial considerations with those same restrictions in mind.

There's a little known set of 4th amendment jurisprudence attached to technology that says something along the lines of "if the public can't generally take advantage of the technology (have it be readily accessible to them), neither can law enforcement when executing a 'search'" - think super-accurate heat sensors that can essentially x-ray the interior of homes, etc...Well we are about to just hand an entire domain to them!

In short: law enforcement is salivating at the thought of commercial drone use because they won't have any regulations applicable to them.

I assume you mean Kyllo, which I have a number of problems with (though I'm somewhat reassured by some of Scalia's points in the majority opinion). But maybe my imagination isn't good enough - what's the scary scenario with drones that Kyllo makes legal?

It's a new thing. People are always scared of new things. And soon enough it's just a part of life and you can't believe society ever got along without it. There is a massive danger that overly conservative regulations will impede technological progress and innovation.

And to be perfectly honest I'm not worried about privacy from it. There isn't much you can see from a drone you can't with binoculars and possibly a ladder. And besides that, no one is going to spy on you. It's going to be something minor that happens to one out of a million people and then gets completely exaggerated by the media.

Whereas changing the world's distribution system has massive implications on everyone's lives, and many of the other possible uses of drones can change the world as well. Besides it's an awesome hobby and I'd hate to see it get banned just because it became more popular.

> I don't see how Prime Air is any less safe or efficient than sending thousands of five-ton metal boxes barreling down residential streets.

Here's the difference: there's a person directly controlling that five-ton metal box.

Even if you assume that a) the person behind the wheel of a delivery truck is arguably more fallible than a drone following a flight plan and b) a company operating a drone will have the same potential legal liabilities if the drone causes harm to property or an individual, you should not underestimate or ignore the comfort that being able to "blame" or hold a human being accountable provides.

> The response to Prime Air goes far beyond skepticism. It's incoherent, fanatical pessimism, and it's really dissapointing.

There are many commercial applications for drones that I don't see a whole lot of opposition to. These include agriculture, construction, mining and oil. Many if not most of these involve the use of drones in areas that are sparsely populated or where access is limited to authorized personnel.

The only thing that's incoherent and disappointing here is pretending that there's no difference between these "industrial" applications and applications that would inject drones into highly-populated areas, particularly those that are residential.

Suburban residential is very low-population-density, a few people per square mile, less during working hours. It wouldn't be hard to put a box next to your driveway where a copter could drop a package, and never get within a hundred feet of anybody.

The real population density issue is downtown, during working hours. Even then folks are on the sidewalk or indoors. There's nobody on the roof for instance. Copters could drop a package into a chute, again without getting close to anybody.

> Suburban residential is very low-population-density, a few people per square mile...

It sounds like you're confusing "suburban residential" with "backwater rural." Census data[1] shows that there are a lot more people per square mile than you suggest.

Even a small metropolitan area like Vernal, Utah, which has a population of just 25,224, has a population density of ~250 people per square mile.

[1] http://www.census.gov/population/metro/files/CBSA%20Report%2...

You do realize how big a square mile is, right? 250 people still leaves a lot of empty space.

Since the payload is 5 pounds, it would have to weigh significantly more.

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