@neil This type of weapon has been around since the mid 2000s. They were initially developed for the Iraq war, and had tracks or large wheels rather than legs initially. Military drones were controversial, but the ground based semi-autonomous mini-tanks were more so. Some people in universities objected to developing this stuff, but they were a small minority and since the US is a military Keynesian economy there wasn’t much opposition or alternative employment available. There have been people campaigning against military robots – particularly the autonomous variety – for about 15 years.The talking points to watch out for are: – The robots result in less casualties (for our side). Fewer people “in harm’s way” – Because they are robots they will make impartial autonomous decisions, untainted by human prejudice or battle fatigueI think in future robots like this will be used to carry out genocides. There will be deniability because they will say a bug or glitch caused undefined behavior in the swarm planner. The rise of military robots wasn’t the main reason I stopped working in that industry, but it was a background factor.
@neil This type of weapon has been around since the mid 2000s. They were initially developed for the Iraq war, and had tracks or large wheels rather than legs initially. Military drones were controversial, but the ground based semi-autonomous mini-tanks were more so. Some people in universities objected to developing this stuff, but they were a small minority and since the US is a military Keynesian economy there wasn’t much opposition or alternative employment available. There have been people campaigning against military robots – particularly the autonomous variety – for about 15 years.The talking points to watch out for are: – The robots result in less casualties (for our side). Fewer people “in harm’s way” – Because they are robots they will make impartial autonomous decisions, untainted by human prejudice or battle fatigueI think in future robots like this will be used to carry out genocides. There will be deniability because they will say a bug or glitch caused undefined behavior in the swarm planner. The rise of military robots wasn’t the main reason I stopped working in that industry, but it was a background factor.