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takyon writes:

The US Office of Naval Research (ONR) has been showing off its Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) that will "throw massive swarms of networked aircraft into the skies to search for the enemy."

Vice has published an interview with Lee Mastroianni, Technical Manager on the LOCUST project:

Are the drones designed to carry weapons or for reconnaissance?
They could be for reconnaissance; they could be weaponized. If you look at the LOCUST video we put online, I used a sample mission... you have a simultaneous strike where weaponized UAVs take [all their targets] out at the same time.

And do they operate in a kamikaze sort of way? They fly into the target and explode?
The UAVs would be the weapon as opposed to a Predator [UAV], which launches other weapons. These are one-way missions.

Once they're in the air, how are they controlled?
That's the second big piece of the demonstration—autonomous control. Once launched, I don't need to talk to the UAVs. They understand what the mission is. They're talking to one another. You want to know what's it up to. You want to control it. You need to. But it isn't a UAV pilot flying it like a remote control aircraft.

Vice also interviewed Stephan Sonnenberg, a Clinical Supervising Attorney and Lecturer in Law at Stanford University:

Have you seen the LOCUST promotional video and, if so, what sort of angle are you coming at it from?
Stephan Sonnenberg: I'm concerned about how all this is going to be impacting civilians. You're expanding the capability—the range—of very lethal weapons systems into situations you wouldn't currently use that kind of lethal force. It's amazing for a promotional video that the target for this is indiscriminate shelling of a village.

Yeah, putting a Middle Eastern–looking settlement in the video struck me as odd, from a PR point of view. Legally, is this idea of autonomy more cause for concern than the drone technology we see at the moment?
Human Rights Watch have taken the position of many others who think that the line should be drawn with autonomous weapons. You're abdicating ethical responsibility to some kind of a programmer to write code that's going to be consistent with humanitarian norms. I think there's a lot to be worried about.

Is there any sort of legal framework in place to differentiate between manned and unmanned flights?
The US will put forward its own justifications, many of which are classified, but if you really look at it it's very scary. For example, kids that are 12-years-old, or whatever, are going to be assumed to be targets unless posthumously proven otherwise, which is obviously outrageous.

Is there any legal framework in place to stop the US developing a fully autonomous drone?
No, I don't think there is. If I were having to argue that there was, I would come up short.