Are you sure? It seems that the obvious way for drones to "occupy" land is to embed an IFF transponder in every human that is authorized to be in the area, and then program your drone swarm to kill every living thing that is not identified as friendly. The reason this hasn't happened yet is that nobody ruthless enough has yet gained control of a drone swarm. But this is a social, not technical obstacle, and one that is disturbingly likely to fall in the next decade.
That's quite a dark thought. And I doubt we'll get there - in that case you'd be one failed chip away from death at all times. Nothing like redefining the reign of terror.
Yes, it is a dark thought. There have been many leaders in history where millions of people have been one failed harvest or missing piece of documentation away from death at all times, and the leader didn't care. (And worse, much of the population backing the leader didn't care either, as long as it wasn't them.)
