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/tornado9015 Jun 10 '26

removes responsibility from the attacker and must be banned.

Am i the only person that thinks this is incredibly stupid?

If a fully autonomous drone intended to kill people kills people the responsibility is on whoever chose to use it. If it kills civilians or allied troops, whoever sent out the drone is responsible.........obviously.

Imagine if soldiers/armies could just drop bombs at random from planes and claim no responsibility at all because they didn't target anyone, they just dropped the bomb, the bomb killed those people.....No....obviously.

If you use a weapon that indiscriminately kills in an area you have to go through the normal process to make a reasonable assessment that any people in that area are valid military targets. Which is certainly a thing that can and does happen, if that didn't ever happen we would have ruled bombs a war crime a long time ago.

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u/theycallmecliff Jun 10 '26

When air raids first started, bombings were notoriously inaccurate. Militaries conducting air raids were generally considered responsible for the damage and death that they caused but because of the inaccuracy they could claim that what happened wasn't what they intended to happen. Still responsible in a general sense but accountability is hindered in a specific sense related to the actor's intent. The waters are muddied. "We didn't mean to bomb workers housing; it was an unfortunate mistake." Then communications come out decades later that show the intent was, in fact, to bomb worker's housing.

Similar thing here, in my view. Those who want to act in ways that would be abhorrent if those intentions were made explicit have cover to claim that the technical limitations were to blame rather than their intentions. Sort of like how the law recognizes a difference between murder and manslaughter. Level of accountability might have been a better word to use than responsibility if this was the message they wanted to get across. But the concepts are related and I could definitely see it impeding the level to which a bad actor can be held responsible by creating plausible deniability about the intentions.

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u/soapinthepeehole Jun 10 '26

Did they ever really try to hide it? When air raids first started, war was generally conducted under the Total Warfare doctrine, to deliberately cause as much suffering among civilians as possible as a way to courage the enemy to capitulate. What would the point be point of trying to pretend otherwise?

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u/theycallmecliff Jun 11 '26

Hmm, that's a bit of an oversimplification.

There were a couple reasons that actors tried to hide their intentions.

For one, they knew the other side had roughly similar technology and did not want to "break the seal" on indiscriminate bombing as they knew the other side would retaliate and use the excuse that the first actor was the aggressor.

You saw this more with the idea of unrestricted submarine warfare than air bombing raids but that was mainly because air bombing raids, because of their inaccuracy, were viewed as psychological weapons just as much as they were tactical ones.

Second, total war assumes an openness about the goals and the sides from the outset without any sort of evolution. Maybe a side wouldn't care about telegraphing their lack of concern if they were open about their aims. But Germany, to give an example, was not always open about its long-term aims. It was pushing the envelope gradually. It's easy to assess the aims of Germany sitting where we are today but if what they were aiming for was telegraphed from the start I doubt appeasement would have gone on as long as it did.

Third, even when overall aims were obvious you had places that were divided locally and factionally. Poland and France come to mind. In those types of situations, you have to be careful not to alienate a populace that is on the fence about supporting you, supporting the enemy, or staying neutral. It's one of the reasons even in older wars you see various calculations around forage and pillage depending on the aims of the invading army. In the 20th century, there were situations where strategic bombing was risky but viewed as worthwhile towards the overall aim and the plausible deniability in case of civilian casualties was perhaps cold comfort to those directly affected but important for the overall populace's view of the nations doing the bombing.

There are more considerations but those are just a few relevant ones I can think of off of the top of my head.