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Autonomous murdering is easier, perhaps much easier. Is it really though? One variable that autonomous driving has in its favor is nobody is actively trying to

• dirtyid 4y ago
  IMO yes, mass attritionable UAVs exacerbates fundemental disadvantage of anti air - hard to defend everywhere vs air power easier to concentrate to create local tactical superiority. Countermeasures can keep pace but doesn't mean they can match scale. It's typically going to be easier to mass UAVs who can use standoff munitions than to preposition defensive assets, especially land based ones, in sufficient concentrations which can be countered by adding more UAVs during mission planning. Countermeasures for high performance UAVs, essentially unmanned fighters instead of low tier drones will be very difficult. Advanced US/PRC HALE drones fly much higher and potentially faster, there's a reason counters like DE or various form of jamming target their ordnances at lower attitudes, not high flying, fast flying drones themselves which still requires combination of high performing ground and air based interceptors that can hit high. Except UAVs can tactically operate without life preservation in mind, which means much more permissive/aggressive operations = even more difficult requirements for counter-air infra. Ultimately it's balance between offense / defensive is matter of industrial base, producing and positioning enough hardware to overwhelm opponents. Effects on battleground will be situational, i.e. large powers can already overwhelm smaller powers, and for peer powers it will be theatre specific, i.e. PRC can more easily overwhelm US carrier groups with mass drones because CSGs has finite VLS cells, power generation etc for defense whereas land based aviation can be massed at scale. Alternatively, PRC's very comprehensive anti-air network might be more easily penetrated by aggressive UAV formations using tactics manned missions won't attempt.
• tossemaccount22 4y ago
  You have a valid point. But as a person who has worked in industrial automation, and also the military, yeah automatic murder is probably 50x easier than preventing human bodily harm. Just having machinery around people is inherently dangerous. But aside from complex concepts, The mine for example, is potentially one of the first Automated Killing devices, and is notoriously good at it. Integrating technology into simple killing devices isn't very difficult compared to keeping people safe from harm. And while I agree that there are plenty of good ways to stop automated killing devices, you have to make big sacrifices to stop them, and that's another point to be made about this unique situation. You either have to outpace your opponents technology, or be willing to fight without some or all of your own, because when you start introducing stuff like what you listed above, you can no longer use your own systems of defense, which then makes you vulnerable to other conventional forms of attack, giving the advantage to the technologically superior team. In my opinion 'Terminator' might not be 10 years away, but automated killing devices are already in the field, and they aren't being reported on because they are classified. You would not believe the money and effort that goes into recovery of physical assets (working and destroyed) that are in theatre.