| I used to think that but I changed my mind after being in the army myself. What you're saying is lets send our soldiers (human beings) into a dangerous situation where they can get killed. If warfare still exists I would rather have robots fighting robots and remove humans from the equation altogether. Second best is to minimize casualties from "our side". Yes, that's terrible but it's also more humane. In war soldiers get killed, this typically escalates violence which increases to both sides. It makes the war more bloody and more personal. Drones are terrible but they significantly reduced US casualties in the war against ISIS. There's collateral damage, but that happens for human attacks as well. In fact, with robots we don't need lethal weapons at all. A recent US drone strike killed a terrorist with flying knives to avoid hurting his family. If a soldier was physically there they would have to start shooting and blowing up the region so no one will shoot back at them. A robot/drone wouldn't have that problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm scared of many aspects related to robots in these scenarios. Specifically the ability of a minority elite controlling the masses. But I also think that robots can help remove a lot of the value/incentive of wars. If countries only sacrifice robots during wars, why fight at all? Use economics policies instead. Maybe we can call it Pax Robota... |
* The "no human in the loop" combat robot is deployed into an area with non-combatants, but wrongly classifies them as enemy combatants.
* The "no human in the loop" combat robot gets damaged while in active combat, forgetting the concept of "friendlies"
* The "no human in the loop" combat robot gets hacked. All sorts of ways this could go badly. If they're hacked en-masse that's potentially amplified dramatically.