we fucking told you https://twitter.com/verge/status/1380036457398697986

"so what's the problem"
uuuhhh war is terrible and setting a precedent for the incremental automation of warfare as a process is even more terrible. there you go, that's the gist

"isn't it better if a robot takes a bullet than a human"
yes. what can also be true at the same time is that progressively removing the human element from warfare ultimately desensitizes you to the use of remote force and makes it more likely youll use that force indiscriminately

see: the end of the first gulf war when all those young lads piloting guided missiles through tiny viewscreens started realizing that the tiny little light-up blobs they were putting their crosshairs on from countless miles away were actual humans

but the solution to that, apparently, is ultimately to automate the process

i should not have to explain why this is bad

I shouldn't bang on too long about this, but,
let me tell you a little story.

my dad was born in 1944 in London during one of the first major V1 rocket attacks on the city, in a bomb shelter

( okay, it was a morrison shelter, which was more of an armored table which was all you could afford as a bomb shelter if you were poor )

My family said he was 'born under the sign of the doodlebug'. Another common name for them was the buzzbomb.

Another commonly-used name that was a little more ominous was the 'robot bomb'.
This reflected growing concerns that the weapons being used in war were increasingly automated - the weapons of war no longer needed human guidance to destroy things.

There, then, was the worry; that increased industrialization of warfare would lead to weapons that would be more powerful and smarter than any of us, and that a steady stream of war automata could simply carry on an eternal war.

This was in 1944 that people were worrying about these things. My dad is 76 and still has instinctive fear reactions when he hears air raid sirens in movies.

I don't want some future generation to suffer lingering trauma from a Spot unit with a gun turret.