Reply #2: Lots of issues. [View All]

[jp11]

Policies about war will have to change and adapt, as well as the legal issues both in the UN and in individual countries.

A definite negative is not all countries will have access to the same level of robotic technology, ie terrorists don't have predator drones, so there will be instances of machines killing people not just other machines at some point if/when that technology for some kind of field soldier robot comes about.

Should it continue I say yes because we can't stop it, the technology will evolve and be adapted to military use if that is not the purpose of some of it in the first place. Someone, somewhere will take the technology to that level, when technology isn't itself derived through 'negative' or otherwise indecent acts I think it should be pursued lest someone else reap the benefits from it and breakthroughs associated with it. The military and public will demand 'safer' ways of doing their job and accomplishing the mission, it won't start out as a robot soldier per se but as some kind of defender like a sentry bot, or automated vehicles to minimize human exposure. I'm sure someone is trying to make a robotic soldier but the requirements and technology are far from being able to deploy such a thing, aspects of it can easily make it into vehicles as well as gear for soldiers.

I'd argue that war has been a 'video game' in many respects for a long time now as often those that send our soldiers off to war have a similar POV as a person playing a game, no real risk for them, detached, etc.