Never mind a swarm, what about controlling just a single drone? There are people in persistent vegetative states who can be communicated with via MRI scanners and appear to be essentially conscious but locked into their body. What if, with consent gained via MRI, you implanted this chip into them, and trained them to remotely control an always-on drone, which had visual and audio sensors streaming to a VR HUD and headphones on the vegetative person?

Could this let these people continue their lives in a new, drone body? How would society deal with that? Over time, it would be difficult to deny these drone avatars the same kinds of rights we award to physical citizens, e.g. to travel freely and not to be unduly harmed. Could the same be done with people suffering full-body paralysis? Or by people in wheelchairs to go to places otherwise inaccessible?

Once society became accustomed to drone avatars interacting with physical humans, might rich-enough, able-bodied people start to also use them in some circumstances. After all, there are advantages, not least the safety factory of not putting your physical body and mind at risk. Eventually, could this lead to a class of citizens who interact only via drone avatars?