[aftbit]

>One amusing issue we had in developing this idea is that frontier models have an aversion to creating entities called 'GunTurret' etc - as it goes against their constitution! (perhaps we should rename turrets to 'SuperSoaker' or something)

This sounds like a great idea for a short story in the style of Malak by Peter Watts. Imagine a future warfighter AI that has been fitted with a set of filters to make it think it's really having a pillowfight or building a factory to make screws while it's actually tearing people apart or optimizing a military production line.

[noddybear]

There was a black mirror episode about this too, I seem to remember! Soldiers imagining they were fighting monsters - while actually committing war crimes.

[aftbit]

This was the central plot twist of "Spec Ops: The Line", a video game from 2012 that started out like your typical Call of Duty clone shooter and escalated to an interesting if a bit twisted look at how PTSD affects soldiers.