A line seems to be drawn at Olin about working for the military-industrial complex that divides it into two parts: the “unacceptable” weapons manufacturers and the “acceptable” reconnaissance suppliers. Holding each other accountable to discourage unsavory behavior helps form a community, and I think it’s great that our norms have reduced the number of Oliners working at “unacceptable” defense contractors compared to other engineering schools. My goal is not to argue that the engineers at Skydio are perfectly identical to the engineers at Lockheed Martin who created laser-guided bombs, one of which was dropped by Saudi Arabia on a school bus in Yemen in 2018, killing 40 children and 11 adults.¹ Rather, I believe we need to reject the artificial dichotomy prevalent in American engineering culture. The distinction between bombs and cameras is not helpful in understanding the real, violent impacts of the military-industrial complex as a whole. 

Often, when drones are discussed in the context of warfare, the focus stays on armed unmanned aerial systems (UAS), also known as ”hunter-killers,” such as the MQ-1 Predator or MQ-9 Reaper manufactured by General Atomics. Some at Olin have claimed that unarmed UAS, such as the Skydio X10D, are different and thereby ethical to build for the military, as they do not directly harm anyone, and merely carry cameras. But is the difference so clear-cut? In practice, the vast majority of an armed UAS’s time is spent hunting without the use of its weapons: the targeted killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “consisted of more than 600 hours of Predator time spent looking for and tracking him, followed by about 10 minutes of F-16 time remodeling the structure he was hiding in.”² In fact, the Predator was first armed in 2001 long after its introduction in 1995.³

Whether the killer is attached to the hunter is simply a matter of situational preference that does not affect the overall outcome. Obviously, while the Skydio X10D also has high-quality cameras and thermal cameras, it functions differently than the Predator due to its small form factor and short battery life. However, it can still act as a part of a hunter-killer system for real-time ground combat. According to Major James Tay, small UAS can act as an effective “force multiplier” because of their ability to give GPS coordinates for ground-to-ground firepower and provide confirmation that a target has been eliminated.⁴ Instead of enacting violence with Hellfire missiles, asymmetrical intelligence from seeing “over the hill” allows for increased lethality including the ability to follow targets and update coordinates should they flee the site of initial attack. 

Proponents of surveillance technology in warfare suggest that it allows for more precise targeting, thus reducing civilian casualties. In practice, however, these targeting technologies instead are used to create new targets through techniques such as “pattern of life” analysis. By gathering data on civilian activities deemed signature behaviors of terrorists, a killing can be authorized without having to even know a target’s name. According to reports, individuals involved in the drone program often “have joked about how a group of Pakistani boys doing “jumping jacks” are easily construed as a “terrorist training camp.””⁵ From the sky, the label of non-combatant evolves to mean someone who has yet to receive designation as a suspect. All those surveilled are suspicious until proven dead: “civilian” becomes solely a retrospective term applied to a life that has ended without being designated a target.⁶ 

This level of surveillance changes warfare away from a focus on military targets towards policing the lives of an entire populace from above. 

It is tempting to view this form of policing as a phenomenon that only happens outside the US, but by moving past the “newness” of drones, we see an old pattern emerge: police surveil a young man from the “suspect” population either by patrol or drone. An officer justifies the routine killing of these targets with little oversight due to a state of exception, triggered by a perceived physical threat to the officer or a terror threat. The identity of the target has little relevance.⁷ It’s no coincidence that after the military, Skydio’s website’s second “solutions” listing is for the police. Skydio brags that “more than 320 law enforcement agencies rely on Skydio in 49 states and across Canada” and that “no other drone solution serves law enforcement needs like Skydio.”⁸ In promotional material, they use rhetoric like “officer-involved shooting” to describe an officer returning fire on a suspect.⁹ Later, they demonstrate how the Skydio drone reduces the time needed to find a suspect in a field and have a K9 unit bite them.¹⁰ Note that police dog bites can go through bone and cause lifelong injuries and even death.¹¹ In many jurisdictions, similar to other escalations of force, dog bites are disproportionately inflicted on Black suspects.¹² Why is this company allowed access to our classrooms? Why do we have to pretend that unarmed drones are perfect observers that will “make the world more productive, creative, and safe”?¹³

In August 2023, Skydio ceased to provide consumer drones, beginning to sell only to private companies and the public sector¹⁴ — the U.S. military provides a more steady stream of funding than could be received from consumers. This shift marks a company-wide shift towards the defense industry: while Skydio used to boast its work in infrastructure and surveying, its new focus is clearly on the military and police. Of Skydio blog posts since August, about half are focused on defense and police applications.¹⁵ Much like how unarmed UAS are justified as ethical in comparison to armed UAS, Skydio allows engineers to justify their choice to work there by contrasting themselves to large weapons manufacturers. Lockheed sells bombs—Skydio sells safety. But who gets to be safe? Whose lives are allowed to be considered precious?  As a community, I hope that we can think more deeply about the systems that our engineering interfaces with and move beyond dismissing critique with phrases like “they’re just cameras” or “they do non-military stuff too.”  Let’s change our norms to see through the different aesthetics and messaging of military-industrial companies and stop working on things that are directly used to enact violence, no matter what form it comes in.

¹US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus | Guardian

²Franz, N. (2017). Targeted killing and pattern-of-life analysis: weaponised media. Media, Culture & Society, 39(1), 111-121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443716673896. (Quote from Lt General David Deptula).

³Kindervater, K. H. (2016). The emergence of lethal surveillance: Watching and killing in the history of drone technology. Security Dialogue, 47(3), 223-238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010615616011 

⁴Group 1 Type: Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) as a Force Multiplier to the Fire Support Team | DTIC

⁵Tyler Wall, “Ordinary Emergency: Drones, Police, and Geographies of Legal Terror,” Antipode, Volume 48, Issue 4 (September 2016), 1122-1139.

⁶Neocleous, Mark. “Air Power as Police Power I.” In War Power, Police Power, 138–62. Edinburgh University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt9qdr8p.9.

⁷Tyler Wall, “Ordinary Emergency: Drones, Police, and Geographies of Legal Terror,” Antipode, Volume 48, Issue 4 (September 2016), 1122-1139.

⁸Police & Law Enforcement Drones | Skydio 

⁹Facepalm Pilot: Where Technology Meets Stupidity: An Interactive Guide to Ambiguous Grammar | McSweeney’s Internet Tendency 

¹⁰The Future of First Response: Oklahoma City Police Department’s Drone Initiative | Skydio 

¹¹We Spent A Year Investigating Police Dogs. Here Are Six Takeaways. | Marshall Project 

¹²K-9s in question: Bay Area police dogs bite with little consequence | KTVU
(WARNING: Contains gore of woman who had scalp bitten off after shoplifting Ulta)

¹³About | Skydio 

¹⁴Skydio to sunset consumer drone offerings | Skydio ¹⁵Newsroom | Skydio

After we put up posters calling out Skydio for sending drones to the Israeli military¹, one common response from the supposed adults at this institution was that criticizing other students’ personal career choices was privileged and therefore wrong (never mind the fact that we were not criticizing individual career choices—we very narrowly called out one company’s involvement with a state currently engaged in genocide). 

I am very aware that a given student’s ability to take an “ethical” job is deeply entangled in class privilege. College is expensive as hell—it shouldn’t be, but it is. Many of us graduate with significant debt and therefore heightened incentives to pursue the lucrative jobs offered by military contractors. 

Those of us with class privilege do indeed have the freedom not to pursue weapons manufacturer jobs, while for some of us, career choice is not much of a choice at all. And class privilege is not a subject that is easy to reckon with. (I also believe administrators and PGP know this and use personal choice as a bad-faith justification for allowing military contractor recruitment.)

But what does it mean that at Olin, an institution that quite frequently touts itself as second-best in the country for undergraduate engineering, that until very recently proudly described itself as elite², where for almost every moment of our four years here we optimize ourselves in pursuit of a job with a starting salary that lets Olin boast that it is “first among all private four-year colleges for highest earnings”—what does it mean that at this institution, we throw up our hands and say that “oh well, people do what they need to earn a living”? If students in this bubble of incredible privilege must justify taking jobs at weapons manufacturers due to a void of opportunity, what choice does the rest of the world have?

I mentioned previously that we must shift the focus of anti-militarist dissent from the individual to the institutional because individualization of responsibility prevents us from recognizing the ways that Olin, the institution, is complicit. This is still the case. Our institution must cut ties with weapons manufacturers (particularly those that are currently profiting from the genocide in Gaza), and our president should not hold a position on the Department of Defense Innovation Board.

But we also shouldn’t pretend that “system change over individual action” exempts us from all moral responsibility. How interesting and saddening that we would “haha no ethical employment under capitalism amirite?” our way into justifying weapons manufacturer recruitment at a wealthy institution in one of the wealthiest areas of the wealthiest country in the world.

No one has the right to kill people or the planet for a living, and no one should have to. It is not a privilege but a right to demand that the work that we do does not help our government terrorize and oppress mostly nonwhite populations abroad in the name of “democracy”³.

Abolitionists say that our work must be twofold: to take power back from deathmaking institutions, but also to dream of new and better horizons beyond what we think possible. I think we dream far too small if we convince ourselves that destroying life in the name of making a living is the world that we have to live in.

¹If you somehow missed it, Skydio is abetting a genocide by sending drones to the Israeli military. We put up many rounds of posters pointing out this fact; these posters were swiftly removed because our administration conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. See linktr.ee/skydioweseeyou for more details.

²And has hopefully realized the very obvious contradiction in having the motto “Engineering for Everyone” as a school with a 1 in 5 acceptance rate that largely enrolls private school students, no longer provides need-based financial aid to international students, and will take 87 years to educate the same number of engineers that Arizona State does in one year.

³You may have noticed I do not use the common euphemism for weapons manufacturers. That is because defense is possibly the least accurate term for what the U.S. military does.

♈ Aries: March 21–April 19

• Welcome back from Scotland! You should have run when you had the chance.

♉ Taurus: April 20–May 20

• Whore yappiness??????

♊ Gemini: May 21–June 21

• You stumble upon a mystery metal. It’s a liquid! Like vodka. Beware, it’s not galium. Your flooring will be replaced.

♋ Cancer: June 22–July 22

• You will see Renee Rapp. You will question your sexuality.

♌ Leo: July 23–August 22

• Oops! There is a fire. Run. The cats will cry. The cats are high.

♍ Virgo: August 23–September 22

• I think gay is the best one. If you’re straight, that’s your own problem.

♎ Libra: September 23–October 23

• Horoscope incoming! I’m cooking, cooking!!!

♏ Scorpio: October 24–November 21

• Welcome to 1N! The sink isn’t supposed to do that. I guess beavers cause dams.

♐ Sagittarius: November 22–December 21

• You will get BITCHES!! You love them sooo much. They are so caring and wonderful and you love having them in your life.

♑ Capricorn: December 22–January 19

• Your name is Regina George. You are not a massive deal. You have five QEA assignments due.

♒ Aquarius: January 20–February 18

• You’ll get cozy in the Charlotte airport. You’ll miss your first P&M. Bonding.

♓ Pisces: February 19–March 20

• You’ve been through ten high schools. They start to get blurry. No point planting roots ‘cause you’re gone in a hurry.

Answer Key (no peeking!):