You Are Now Watching the Drone: Kanye West on UAS

from Gizmodo.com

Kanye West is a worrier. Except these days, he’s not upset about Bonnaroo or water bottles, he’s worried about adult stuff, like the safety of his one-year-old daughter North. More specifically, he’s worried about her getting electrocuted by a paparazzi-piloted drone while she’s swimming. As with most things Kanye, it’s an insightful point flecked with just the lightest patina of crazy.

Kanye recently gave a deposition in a lawsuit filed by a paparazzo whom he attacked last year. TMZ got its meathooks on the transcript, and in it, Kanye describes some of his fears about overly aggressive photographers, especially now that he has a child, reportedly asking the other lawyer a volley of “sarcastic” questions:

“Is your daughter stalked by like drones? Are there drones flying where she’s trying to learn how to swim at age 1? Wouldn’t you like to just teach your daughter how to swim without a drone flying? What happens if a drone falls right next to her? Would it electrocute her?”

Unsurprisingly, the internet took that last little tidbit and ran with it: It’s both a slow summer and we’ve been experiencing a bit of Kanye drought lately.

First of all, yes: No one is going to get electrocuted by a battery-powered drone. But regardless of whether Kanye was jokingly trying to prove a point or seriously concerned about the possibility of electrocution-by-quadcopter, he has a point: Drones are becoming a big, big public safety problem.

Sales of consumer drones are booming. You’ve likely seen a couple of these buzzing little guys out around your neighborhood before. All around the country, tens of thousands of unskilled randos (no offense Martha) are launching sharp, heavy devices into the air and piloting them to surprisingly high altitudes above populated parts of the world.

It’s a recipe for disaster, and they’re already close to happening: Some guy reportedly nearly crashed his quadcopter into the Space Needle last week. Multiple pilots have reported near misses with drones this summer. Even though no one was hurt, a tourist at Yellowstone recently crashed their drone into its most famous hot spring monument. In short, people are dumbasses, and very few of us have any business flying a chunk of plastic and metal thousands of feet in the air without training. To make matters worse, many consumer-level quadcopters are cheap, poorly engineered gadgets with terrible battery life.

So, no, Kanye probably doesn’t need to fear electrocution by a battery-operated toy. Feel free to chuckle at that. But his worry about drones crashing on his kid? That’s the most lucid thing we’ve heard Kanye—or anyone else talking about drones—say all summer.

Continue Reading at Gizmodo.com…