[danholo]

Battles decided by robots is an exciting prospect, saving uncountable lives. Unfortunately, only a handful of countries will have those available, so our enemies are gonna get fucked up pretty badly, which means they'll go even more underground/terrorist.

Sounds horrible. If the rich get richer, and the poor poorer, the future of war will be sticks against mecha; But then even the other side will get mecha eventually.

I was thinking of writing a sci-fi book.

[Zerogouki]

That X-45 is pretty badass.

[Texpat]

Admiral Mike Mullen
Chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
May 14, 2009

"... there are those that see JSF [Joint Strike Fighter] as the last manned fighter. I'm one that's inclined to believe that. We're at a real time of transition here in terms of the future of aviation, and the whole issue of what's going to be manned and what's going to be unmanned, what's going to be stealthy, what isn't, how do we address these threats … it's changing, even from 2006."

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/DRArch ... craft.aspx

The issue here is that once you give an autonomous, heavily armed machine the ability to decide wether something should be destroyed or not, you have a problem.

That bridge was crossed years ago with land and sea mines.

[Zerogouki]

That bridge was crossed years ago with land and sea mines.

Not comparable. Those don't move on their own, aren't reusable, and can't choose what they blow up. Also, the land mines that we left in Vietnam are killing civilians to this day, so that plan clearly backfired.

[Texpat]

Mines are simple, mechanical machines designed to kill without any input from humans.

Granted, they kill indiscriminately, but kill nonetheless. If a mine still works after being buried for 30+ years, I'd say that's a testament to the designer and manufacturer. A glowing recommendation if I've ever heard one.

[Zerogouki]

Actually, they do require input from humans, in the form of stepping on one.

[Figlio di Moros]

I think there's great possibilities for this, particularly combined with advances in directed energy weapons. I'm especially in favor if it's so much cheaper, as someone pointd out earlier; it'd free manpower and funding to focus more on facing guerilla-style opponents and terrorists while still maintaining our ability to dominate conventional opponents.