Twenty or thirty years ago, “machines that kill by their own decision” were a matter of science fiction… Five years ago, the military use of complex algorithms (called “artificial intelligence”…) was a matter of philosophical and ethical objections and concerns.
Not anymore! The divine air force, apart from bombing and killing en masse in the Gaza Strip based on the “findings” and “instructions” of complex algorithms. And on the Ukrainian battlefield, Russian and Ukrainian drones “strike” equipped with complex target recognition algorithms. And these are already known; research on future applications is not announced.
But it’s not just about the “automated” final blow. Equally important (from some perspectives more important) is the prospect of “automated” control of the entire set of enemy reactions, through the timely complex combination of psychological warfare tools, sonic weapons, disorientation actions, behavioral mechanics, disinformation, etc.: what is called the conscious battlefield.
The more populations “upload-their-minds” daily into everyday machines; the more the “average citizen” becomes simply an operator of “smart algorithms,” the more the mechanization/automation (both in times of war and in times of peace) will be legitimized and expanded.
Don’t ask if “machines will kill” when they (their bosses…) already dominate!