I have heard that the Army is considering Robots to take the place of soldiers in the battlefield. This strikes me as so wrong on so many levels.

First; it violates the First Law of Robotics

Second; it takes away the intelligence behind the trigger. A soldier can make some sort of determination to shoot or not to shoot based on the situation. Is that an enemy combatant? a civilian that wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time? a fellow soldier that got scrambled?

Third; “War is Hell” has a real meaning. People are killing People. Will it now be “War is Heck”?

Corollary to Third; what is the impact on our impressions of the “enemy”? they are now just targets for our toys to kill? Is it all a video game now? Is there any need to resolve our differences with other cultures and societies, since we aren’t really putting personal resources at risk? Not only do we not need to negotiate with anyone, they won’t have anyone to negotiate with.

Fourth; Every hacker in the world will be working on ways to take over the robots. Once they are turned, they can be sent against the ones that deployed them. Or, they can be made to run amok in civilian centers with wonderful PR results. I’m sure there are a lot of other options that a “bad” robot could be used for as well.

I don’t object to using robots as bomb sniffers or bomb defusers or surveillance drones or any number of non-combatant purposes, but the very idea of a combatant robot gives me the willies. Talk about dehumanizing war.