The era of drone wars is already upon us. The era of robot wars could be fast approaching.
Already there are unmanned aircraft demonstrators like the arrow-head shaped X-47B that can pretty-well fly a mission by itself with no involvement of a ground-based "pilot".
There are missile systems like the Patriot that can identify and engage targets automatically.
And from here it is not such a jump to a fully-fledged armed robot warrior, a development with huge implications for the way we conduct and even conceive of war-fighting.
If the government uses them to fight the Drug Menace won't that be OK?
Just think of the possibilities. Chemical sensors to tell what is going on and then exploding drones to solve the problem. I think Obama would be on board with that. He claims the power to kill Americans depending on circumstances and what more dire circumstance could there be than some person doing slamming heroin? Or snorting meth.
I assume that to make sure it is all nice and legal like the drones will make sure the "evil doer" has a drug injection just before the explosion. And the drones can then leave the appropriate evidence to make it all nice and tidy.
What could possibly go wrong?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I don't entirely understand why people are upset about drone warfare, after all, in WW 1 & 2 we saw civilian populations in large cities obliterated from the air, poison gas attacks, and all the other related horrors. In some ways the Geneva convention makes things worse, our leaders take great pains to make sure it's enforced on rank and file soldiers. Troops have been prosecuted for committing mercy killings of badly injured/soon to die combatants begging for death to end the pain. Politicians express outrage over urination on dead combatants, but shrug off criticism that wars are commenced over dodgy intel on WMD's. The Geneva convention makes politicians feel they may legitimately engage in warfare on the weakest pretext so long as they enforce the rules on the little people.
Drones are merely an efficient next step in military technology. maybe people don't like them for the same reason knights hated the invention of guns. Soon you will see drone on drone engagements and war as we know it will be obsolete, straight out of Jules Verne.
choff wrote:I don't entirely understand why people are upset about drone warfare, after all, in WW 1 & 2 we saw civilian populations in large cities obliterated from the air, poison gas attacks, and all the other related horrors. In some ways the Geneva convention makes things worse, our leaders take great pains to make sure it's enforced on rank and file soldiers. Troops have been prosecuted for committing mercy killings of badly injured/soon to die combatants begging for death to end the pain. Politicians express outrage over urination on dead combatants, but shrug off criticism that wars are commenced over dodgy intel on WMD's. The Geneva convention makes politicians feel they may legitimately engage in warfare on the weakest pretext so long as they enforce the rules on the little people.
Drones are merely an efficient next step in military technology. maybe people don't like them for the same reason knights hated the invention of guns. Soon you will see drone on drone engagements and war as we know it will be obsolete, straight out of Jules Verne.
Soldiers have consciences... drones don't. A (very) small number of people could command a huge array of autonomous drones and do ruthless, atrocious things with them. It's a recipe for enabling tyranny.
