[omegaman]

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci...124-29zz2.html

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

That idea makes me uneasy. I don't like the idea of humans not being in the decision making process

[martok2112]

It is a scary thought.
Not only do I see shades of The Terminator or The Matrix in this....but, also the machine enslavement of humankind from events leading up to DUNE.

[Akula2ssn]

Yeah the "real" advantage in the eyes of the Pentagon and bureaucrats that the technology advocates fail to mention is that automation also means that there's no grunt you need to give a pay check, benefits, etc. We have a culture in the government that's able to say (with a straight face mind you) that that there is no "old boys club" in the service after giving a general a reduction in paygrade so that he gets something like a million dollar reduction in retirement as punishment for misusing tax payer money. While a highly trained enlisted person making about 40,000 a year would get the entire UCMJ thrown at them.

Another flaw is the argument that machines could be programmed with Geneva convention protocols and in the end be able to act more ethically than a human operator. Even if I were to grant that ethics can be distilled into little more than a mechanical document, the fact is that enemies that fight to win are not going to abide by the established rules or convention (not completely anyway). Forces that are at a disadvantage know that they can't fight by established rules and conventions. That's part of why insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan have been able to survive and inflict such large casualties. They don't try to fight on our terms because they know they can't match us that way.