The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Review on the Social Impacts of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Cutting-edge technologies in drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have the potential to transform and disrupt businesses and economic sectors. UAV technology can reconfigure the design and operation of services, resulting in improved productivity expansion and economic growth. Multiple studies extol the potential social, economic, and environmental tradeoffs of this technology by outlining processes that could be optimized along the value chain. However, the picture does not have to be completely positive. Although UAVs have the power to transform and significantly enhance our society, there are still certain socio-techno-economic consequences associated with the way this technology is applied. This paper presents an overview of recent trends in researching, developing, and deploying (RD&D) the most extensively UAVs applications usage towards drones as a service (DaaS). These themes will be discussed in threefold method: the ‘Good UAVs’ explores how these technological tools can promote our societies; the ‘Bad UAVs’ discusses a more nuanced view of the potential negative externalities generated by drones. Finally, the ‘Ugly UAVs’ investigates the possible risks generated by commercial drones. All themes have been briefly exemplified in the agriculture industry. The level of automation linked with the human factor in-, on-, and out-the loop of cyber-physical systems should be given more research attention, emphasizing and capturing inner social perspectives of commercial UAVs. Deploying new technologies should be based on the quality and value of the job itself to create a new class of human workers who can be evolved and are not just be valuable but be valued.