Advanced AI Drones May Be Coming To A Police Station Near You

Last week it was announced that the startup company Skydio will have its new automated drones tested out by America’s border police, according to a report by Forbes.

Currently $340 million has been raised to fund the project, with a company valuation of over $1 billion. Some key investors are AI chipmaker manufacturer Nvidia, venture capital firm Andreessen and Horowitz, and NBA star Kevin Durant.

According to sources compiled by Forbes, the Skydio is definitely not pre-revenue as at least 20 police agencies across the United States are now apart of their drone fleets in such cities as Boston and Houston. The company also gave out free ones for police stations to have since the start of the lockdowns a year ago.

We‘re solving a lot of the core problems that are needed to make drones trustworthy and able to fly themselves. Autonomy—that core capability of giving a drone the skills of an expert pilot built in, in the software and the hardware—that’s really what we’re all about as a company.
Adam Bry. CEO of Skydio and Ex-MIT and former employee for Google

‘It claims to be shipping the most advanced AI-powered drone ever built: a quadcopter that costs as little as $1,000, which can latch on to targets and follow them, dodging all sorts of obstacles and capturing everything on high-quality video. Skydio claims that its software can even predict a target’s next move, be that target a pedestrian or a car.’

These drones are not the first to utilize similar technologies. But some police agencies report that the Skydio drones are much better in ‘tight, tactical situations – like inside a building or through a forest.’

Skydio also boasts that the drones are built in America with minimal parts coming from China, and have directly attacked some of their Chinese competition such as DJI who makes a similar drone.

The Forbes report also says, Last year, in Burlington, Massachusetts, a Skydio came through the woods to help out a SWAT team in a five-hour standoff with two armed suspects holed up in a large suburban house. Using its autonomous flying features, the Skydio was able to get up close to the building by dodging obstacles—a clothesline, a garden umbrella—and peer through the windows. Under surveillance from the drone, the suspects turned themselves in 30 minutes later.

It just flows around, which makes it a lot easier when you’re talking about high-risk situations.
Sage Costa. The officer operating the drone

A shortfall to this drone, however, is the drone must be manually controlled at night by remote.

The drone can cost anywhere between $10,000 to $20,000 (the model type depicted above). Their Chinese competition, DJI, costs only $3,500.

Skydio is also contracting with the military as well as the Pentagon is in the process of banning Chinese drones and similar devices, an initiative from the Trump administration. The Pentagon stated companies such as Skydio are acceptable for purchase.

Many at Silicon Valley and Google called on the Pentagon stop working with immigration agencies, but CEO Adam Bry still sees the benefits of licensing their drones to these types of agencies.

It’s unfortunate that some of these agencies are as polarized as they are . . . I think that an organization like Customs and Border Patrol performs an absolutely critical function for society that we all depend on.
We understand that our drones are going to be used in potentially polarizing and charged situations. But I think that steering away from that just because it’s controversial or polarizing would be the wrong thing to do.

Bry made it clear that they will never add weapons to its drones or sell them to a repressive regime.

AUTHOR COMMENTARY

[17] As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us. [18] They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come. [19] Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
Lamentations 4:17-19

As the report stated, police and the military playing with drones is nothing new, but these drones keep getting more and more powerful. Drones have been a major trend this past decade, and the lockdowns and Covid pandemonium have greatly extenuated this.

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[7] And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. [8] And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. [9] If any man have an ear, let him hear. [10] He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Revelation 13:7-10

I believe that more advanced drones will be created in the future that will be used to persecute the saints in the Time of Jacob’s trouble, and use them to round up those hiding from the antichrist army. Drones are clearly being used for that already in a similar fashion, but on a much grander and sophisticated scale.

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