The Convergence Of War And Video Games

In the wake of the WikiLeaks controversy, Clive Thompson talks to NPR about the "moral and ethical aspect to the way you design weapon systems."

Predator drone strikes, they're highly virtualized situations, right? I mean, you have someone sitting on American soil or in a nearby country, you know, piloting a drone able to shoot and kill. And so, everything is done through an interface in the same way that everything on a video game is done through an interface. It’s going to be a constant question for us as a society and for the military whether or not, as they become more game-like, that creates an effect that makes it easier to kill people in a way that you might not want to make it easier to kill people.

Above footage from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.