Robotics and warfare

[Archae]

I've been thinking about how robotics have made it into the battlefield, from those little robots soldiers use to scout ahead, all the way to the Predator drones.

I doubt we'll ever have the robotics from the Terminator movies.

Should this trend continue?

The positive side is that someday it'll just be one robot "killing" another robot.

The negative is this reduces war to a video game.

[Goldstein1984]

1. More likely that...

Robots from wealthy countries will be slaughtering peasants in poor countries where we have "vital national interests."

We don't see our Predator drones having dogfights with Predator drones from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Afghan and Pakistani children just see Predator-launched Hellfire missiles fired by a "pilot" 12,000 miles away sucking on a quad mocha from Starbucks.

I understand that one Predator drone pilot received a Silver Star and a Purple Heart for injuries he sustained when he spilled a very hot americano in his lap while bombing an Afghan wedding party.

[jp11]

2. Lots of issues.

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.

[anarch]

3. the ethical considerations are staggering

Someday, if humans survive long enough, there might be something along the lines of the sentient machines in the Terminator movies. In the meantime, we have some very detached humans killing other humans from thousands of miles away, in connection with an occupation that can only be objectively seen as contrary to what passes for "international law". There's something that offends me almost viscerally about the way the U.S. is using drones for offensive strikes. I do not think it should continue...not like this.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. No, robots make war more acceptable and increase the number of...

civilian non-combatants dead on the battlefield.

Robot armies would still be required to take and hold objectives. Those objectives, such as cities, towns, buildings, farms, etc. have people living in them. Those people become collateral damage.

To limit war you must make a people take ownership of that war. Everybody fights, everybody pays, leads to fewer wars. If just robots fights, the other guy pays. No big deal.