As I see it their are 4 key components to discussing what should be automated/ robotized for the military {and in general}
1. Ethics
2. Logistical / operational
3. Technical feasibility
4. Legal
Ethics
As I mentioned earliest their is a huge ethical problem with continuing with manned platforms that are being placed in danger when an unnamed platform can do a similar {including slightly worse} or better job.
Their is also the ethical question of utilizing public funds in an efficient way and looking over the life cycle cost unmanned options tend to be cheaper or appear to be at this time.
Logistical / Operationalizing
Others have raised solid points about the actual use of the robots in the field and technical literature is filed with studies on the man machine {especially autonomous or partially autonomous systems} interface and how you team them
This area is apt for lively debate now and moving forward… I suspect we in the west are slightly behind the Russians on this front… and this will be critical when it comes Tim edit actual human robot doctrine development.
Technical feasibility
Now this gets really into the weeds about how autonomous or semi autonomous systems function, but is no less important as it helps define the scope and create some option spaces for exploring new ideas or spaces to implement New systems
This needs to be grounded in both the technical and the social details if we have a technically perfect solution that can’t integrate into the force it might as well just not work. {probably the only important section of this thread that needs to be talked about more}
Legal
With any discussion of autonomy and robotization their needs to be a frank discussion about internal humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict I also think their is value in discussing the use of such systems in a degraded or post Westphalian order security environment
Anyways this would be a great subject for a white paper.
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