Huge difference between primary and secondary uses. If the the only use for your faster processor is for an automated weapon, you are responsible.
A processor is general purpose. What if you designed a thermal / visible 1024x1024 pixel camera with built in optical flow calculator in a cerdip package? Even the boss man didn't tell you what it was for you could figure it out. You would be responsible.
I honestly don't know what all those words mean when put together, but near as I can tell, that sounds like something useful for any kind of work related to robots with vision. Which part indicates that it's for killing people?
The thermal imaging part (think of the FLIR systems used on Predator Drones) means it will be used to pick up heat signatures, the optical part will be used to check whether it's something you're looking for.
Now that could be used to check heat distribution on a motherboard, so up that that point, it's benign, but the optical flow calculator nudges it into other territory.
An optical flow calculator means it'll be used in some kind of mobile system. That instantly cuts out most industrial processes, most consumer applications, and most scientific applications. It simply wouldn't be necessary there.
The relatively high resolution of it also points towards it being used in highly specialized applications. For comparison, consumer priced thermal imaging chips usually come at 16x16 pixel resolutions.
The last thing sealing the deal would be the CerDIP package. CerDIP stands for Ceramic Dual-inline Package, instead of the usual Epoxy that holds the world of electronics together. I haven't worked with them, but I wager they're only used in critical applications, stuff that shouldn't fail even if it's screaming along with 300mph through the sky, right next to a plane engine.
So yeah, either you're building a drone with it, or you're building a drone with it. It'd be too expensive for any other application.
Still, there'd be future consumer applications for the technology. The technology the new Kinect uses for example used to be reserved for spotting tanks in underbrush (I assume that's where tanks live and raise their young).
Correct. As the engineers we need to breakdown our technological components and realize how they will get assembled by the end users. Our moral obligation doesn't stop with "just making tools" and leave the hard problems up to the people that will ultimately be pulling the trigger.
A processor is general purpose. What if you designed a thermal / visible 1024x1024 pixel camera with built in optical flow calculator in a cerdip package? Even the boss man didn't tell you what it was for you could figure it out. You would be responsible.