Lethal Autonomous Robots are inevitable. They think faster than humans, are much more tactically coordinated and all of them can be updated with new instructions and bug fixes. Just ask a marine captain how difficult it is to bug fix and update his men and you can see the value.
The best way to use drones is to think of them as the appendages or hands of one robotic brain instead of individual units. The beauty of networked robots is that they are ultimately coordinated, one knows what all the others know at all times. This is the absolute dream of military commanders. They would adopt the idea much more readily if it didn't put them out of a job. The only reason we can hang on the nostalgia of men at war is because the US hasn't faced a serious military threat in a very long time. Eventually this will no longer be the case and drone on drone combat will be the only reasonable option.
One objection that people have is that drones will eliminate the human cost of war and make destructive combat more common. I say that frequent combat is just fine as long as humans aren't involved. In the future opposing sides will resolve conflicts by destroying a few hundred million dollars of equipment instead of destroying human lives. I'm hoping that total war will be phased out as machines become powerful enough to dominate the battlefield.
Lethal Autonomous Robots are inevitable. They think faster than humans
On the contrary. They follow orders faster than humans. They don't think at all, in the sense that a human can with their adaptability and ethical awareness and ability to make a judgement call that a situation is not something the predetermined rules were designed to handle.
This is the main reason I don't see LARs becoming widely used. They are superior to human warriors in the kind of war that is decided by split-second reactions, when you know exactly who the enemy is and you're otherwise roughly evenly matched. Very few modern wars are actually like that.
The beauty of networked robots is that they are ultimately coordinated, one knows what all the others know at all times. This is the absolute dream of military commanders.
But that dream becomes a nightmare if the system is ever compromised. Of course, no battlefield-wide, 100% computer-driven, 100% remote-controlled system would ever be deployed with a security vulnerability, for the same reasons that no military equipment ever fails under combat conditions, no military unit in the field ever finds itself unable to communicate with its commanders, no computer virus has ever found its way into a secure installation, no software bug has ever caused military equipment to fail, and no human involved in the military or intelligence communities or their suppliers has ever been disloyal.
One objection that people have is that drones will eliminate the human cost of war and make destructive combat more common.
What is the point of having these machines, if they will not ultimately result in a human cost? Weapons of war are made for one purpose, and one purpose only: to be able to kill people. Any more desirable outcomes, like taking control of a hostile country without actually killing everyone, tend to be predicated on the threat that you can do so if you need to.
The best way to use drones is to think of them as the appendages or hands of one robotic brain instead of individual units. The beauty of networked robots is that they are ultimately coordinated, one knows what all the others know at all times. This is the absolute dream of military commanders. They would adopt the idea much more readily if it didn't put them out of a job. The only reason we can hang on the nostalgia of men at war is because the US hasn't faced a serious military threat in a very long time. Eventually this will no longer be the case and drone on drone combat will be the only reasonable option.
One objection that people have is that drones will eliminate the human cost of war and make destructive combat more common. I say that frequent combat is just fine as long as humans aren't involved. In the future opposing sides will resolve conflicts by destroying a few hundred million dollars of equipment instead of destroying human lives. I'm hoping that total war will be phased out as machines become powerful enough to dominate the battlefield.