[sevensor]

I think this comes down to my last sentence -- delegating the decision to kill to a robot is not really different from deciding to kill. But we may do it anyway, and wash our hands. I suppose this is the source of the unease about autonomous drones. Not that they're worse than other killing machines, but that we might deceive ourselves into thinking that they're better.

Maybe a better analogy than a cruise missile would be a land mine. A device that kills, possibly much later than when it's deployed, and often an unintended target.