The Economist’s quarterly technology issue just told me that firms are now offering governments and large companies UAV resources as a service. That is, you (government or large company) pay me (troublingly panoptic for-profit espionage outfit) by the hour to use the drones I maintain and deploy to do whatever spying you wish.

It makes a great deal of sense. The firm offering this service can invest in improved technology and expertise. Governments and corporations can pay only for the services they need without having to build capacity and infrastructure. And competition for business means that the quality of flying robot spies will just keep on improving!

Now, UAVs most frequently come up in discussions of military deployments. But it seems that as they get cheaper and easier to use, people are finding all sorts of stuff to do with the things. Inspecting buildings, monitoring traffic…apparently “mini helicopter drones for reconnaissance inside buildings are not far off.”

UAVs have been enormously successful in the military context that they (mostly) started in. It’s not surprising that the technology should grow beyond those narrow confines. What did surprise me, though it shouldn’t have, is how such drones could plausibly start becoming…somewhat ubiquitous. Or if that’s not quite the right word then at least available, in a very post-nation–state sort of way. “Oh, yes, drones. I know a sales rep for a company that has ones that can refuel each other in flight. She just sold some to an insurgent independence movement somewhere. Also Google.”

Apparently the new thing is to build ones that can fly themselves so that deployed troops without special training can use ones launched from the tops of vehicles to scout the road ahead. These rely, according to The Economist, on software to do things like determine search patterns for accomplishing various objectives. That’s a pretty smart flying spy robot.

The article reassures that only the U.S., Britain, and Israel currently have “hunter-killer” (?) drones, as in flying robots with guns. Those are kept on a pretty tight leash. I don’t think anyone is renting those out  at an hourly rate, at least not anyone who is about to tell a reporter of it.

In any event. The future may be odd.