Robots and autonomous aerial vehicles are becoming more and more sophisticated and are meanwhile accessible to hobbyists as well. Will humanity be slave to thinking machines, our lives be shadowed by independently acting monitoring and sentinel robots in the future? What is happening today already and where is the development headed? Is it ethical for hackers to contribute to the development of these technologies? Which rules will be necessary if everyone can build or purchase a drone and aviate it for peanuts?

Which reasonable usage scenarios can we imagine for autonomous flying apparatus outside of the specific scopes of homeland security and military applications? Is the dream of flying turning into a bad trip for everyone? As part of our lecture program at the Motodrone on September 20th, 2008, at the Finowfurt airfield, we will debate and practically put these and other questions to test.

Motodrone is the European event for scientists, researchers and developers in the field of open source aerial drones. Next to a comprehensive lecture program, workshops, air shows and competitions are offered. The detailed program schedule will be published at within the next couple of days.