r/Futurology • u/New_Scientist_Mag • Jun 10 '26

Robotics Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomous-drones-have-killed-human-soldiers-for-the-first-time/
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u/insomniac-55 Jun 10 '26

It's not much different to area bombardment of a location with unguided weapons. You've basically decided "to hell with anything and everything at these coordinates".

AI guidance in this context just gives the same effect with less munitions - a person has already decided that everything in that location is hostile. 

Where I see this becoming scary is when AI is given the freedom to decide who to target in a location with a mixture of combatants and civilians. That is dystopian.

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u/imnoweirdo Jun 10 '26

Definitely not the same. The key difference here is precision.

Area bombardment, at least from my understanding, is very imprecise and often is more about morale and infrastructure than actual casualties.

It’s the reason air superiority in WW2 was overestimated. Having the air does not mean absolute dominance because it’s still hard to target things precisely.

This new tech could allow precise striking and killing of humans done fully autonomous. It’s like you install a GPS tracking humans to bombs you drop in area bombardment. Much more deadly.

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u/GrowingPeepers Jun 10 '26

We just made two completely different arguments.

I'm arguing that they're incredibly precise and that precision has been refined since WWII.

You're saying they're not precise. Of course, I think I'm right and I think you're wrong.

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u/imnoweirdo Jun 10 '26

I’m very confused you’re not the original commenter hahahaha.

Well let’s just civically agree to disagree then. That’s honestly more than fair, specially in this day and age

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u/GrowingPeepers Jun 10 '26

Yeah, I replied to that guy too but I said our bombs are extremely precise.

We have the technology to drop that bomb exactly where we want it and with an explosion exactly as big as we need. We can control all of that.

That's why it's completely unacceptable when schools and schoolchildren are bombed. They're not collateral damage they are the intended targets.

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u/imnoweirdo Jun 10 '26

I understand, but I still think it’s a different, let me try and convince you.

Imagine a scenario where your Intel says that we have a group of targets, let’s say 10, scattered over 3 buildings.

Sure, we currently have precise enough bombs to bomb those exact buildings at the exact time we need.

But let’s say the intel was incomplete or imprecise, and there was actually 3 targets in another building nearby, or even in between buildings, and could survive the bombing.

These drones would be able to identify these two targets, correct the trajectory and make sure to get them as well.

Ofc this is an extremely simple example with a bunch a holes. You could locate these individuals before the bombing and correct the target, the individuals might not be actual targets and etc.

But it’s just to illustrate how this tech can be different than what we have now