If the physical disconnect between killing a person (e.g. UAVs) wasn't enough to make that task easier then further offloading the decision of who to target might help.
With rising authoritarianism in the US it is highly likely the military will be increasingly deployed against US citizens. Replacing the humans in the loop with AI removes a key safeguard. We’re heading down a very very dark path.
"the military will be increasingly deployed against US citizen" doesn't happen in a vacuum. It comes at the tail end of a long escalation of government/police force.
People don't feel nearly as stupid as they ought to for being complicit in the 30-40yr that lead us to where are now
Globalization broke the unions in the US, the main site of organized popular power. While it’s true that the current state of affairs is part of a longer slide toward authoritarianism, a more accurate etiology would be that it’s the congealing power of the upper class that has been driving the dismantling of democracy. Since concentrated wealth is concentrated power, it is intrinsically anti-democratic. Instead of guilt tripping ourselves we are better off correctly identifying our enemies and organizing together against the forces leading us down this path.
Physical connect means that the person who is making the decision to kill is scared for their life. Physical disconnect means he's only scared for a piece of equipment.
> If the physical disconnect between killing a person (e.g. UAVs) wasn't enough to make that task easier then further offloading the decision of who to target might help
The physical disconnect hypothesis isn't really borne out by the lack of concern for collateral damage in pre-firearm warfare, when killing was mostly done face to face, compared to today.