Personally, I am against the use of weaponized drones in totality.
The use of weaponized drones removes the risk to personel that war implies, making it more attractive to use warfare to get what a government wants. The police use of weaponized drones is the same, just smaller scale. (police more likely to use weaponized drones to bust up undesirable protest groups, et al, because cops wont be at risk.)
At some point, having your skin in the game makes you reconsider your current course of action. That means having lives in peril on both sides makes policy makers more sensitive and thoughtful about employing violence as a solution. -- that means removing that consideration can very much lead to a more violent future, not a less violent one.
If you note, it is usually the "rah rah rah, amerika, rah!" types that strongly advocate drone use. It is precisely because it introduces a strong shift in personal risks to armed conflict, making conflict more desirable. Such people tend to see violence as a desirable thing, when they are on the upper hand of the conflict. The sell it as "reducing risk to our soldiers", and demonize the idea that our soldiers should ever be at risk in a bizare and disgusting twist of rhetoric, intended to draw attention away from their real motive in the matter-- reducing collateral risks means increased utility of violence, which they like.
So no. I am against weaponized robots in general. they should not exist.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think about cruise missiles? Or drones used as spotter platforms for more precise artillery bombardment (from what I know, using offshore platforms ie. battleships and whatnot, this has been done before)?
Both have the same core issue as weaponized drones, you know. They "removes the risk to personel[sic] that war implies, making it more attractive to use warfare to get what a government wants." just as much - between a drone with a Hellfire missile controlled by someone in the US, a Tomahawk cruise missile with nobody controlling it but a set of coordinates and the GPS satellites, or an artillery shell with the operator many miles away and no in-flight control at all, what do you think is best?
Obviously not relevant to police drones, but your context includes those for warfare. How is a drone any worse than the stand-off weapons that have come before? If anything, it's better - there is a human operator at the controls at all times, even if they're not physically present.
EDIT: Also, this is personal opinion notwithstanding. I'm not the biggest fan of how UCAVs have been used so far, but nor am I of a lot of other things, and UCAVs are a least-bad option, in my opinion, for carrying out precision attacks, excluding using troops on the ground. Better than a ground-attack aircraft (marginally), better than cruise missiles, better than artillery, but no replacement for people on the ground (which is partly what they've been used as). None are useless, of course, but drones are better for that one role.
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Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée (Read 1579991 times)