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Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time
(www.newscientist.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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I'm glad they, allegedly, stopped after the one test. This sounds an awful lot like a war crime on Ukraine's part. Enemy combatants (especially since we know most of Russia's army are being trafficked) need the opportunity to surrender peacefully.
Pretty sure it's not a war crime yet. Damn sure it should be. Human in the loop. Update Geneva conventions.
Indiscriminate killing is a war crime, and they have just admitted to it.
If you send an indiscriminate killing machine into an area with only enemy combatants, it's not exactly that indiscriminate. Worst case scenario it fails to detonate and becomes a hazard on the ground, but Ukraine is already saturated with landmines.
As if having a human in the loop would make slaughtering people more humanitarian. How many reports have we read of soldiers from any power perpetrating horrendous acts on enemy combatants, or worse, civilians?
I agree that murder without prejudice should be curtailed if at all possible and that autonomous robots are not likely to accept surrender, but it's not like human agressors are always open to it either.
Not saying it's good, or humanitarian. War crimes don't stop war (much as I would prefer it all to be called murder rather than state sanctioned violence). The Geneva accords create a bottom level of godawful that is unacceptable that the various militaries agree on. Hopefully it helps protects civilians and soldiers both. AI weapons are a plausible existential threat, they should be treated as such, also, importantly, they are also a vector for plausible deniability.
'Humans in the loop' could also provide a level of friction that might make atrocities less common as the commanders cover their asses by putting responsibility on those lower down in the hierarchy, who might choose not to. The only reason nuclear war didn't happen in the 60s was one person saying NO
Of course, the US is (likely) currently bombing civilian water supplies, so we need to drag ourselves back up to basic humanity (and yes, humanity is anything but basic as history attends).
This needs to be addressed criminally later.
Hague invasion act
One can hope.
I think that's really what it all comes down to, is the lack of surrender by a system that could eventually be able to make choices on the fly. You're right though, in the end it's not more humanitarian by any means. I suppose it removes a little bit of the sting and I guess If you're able to pull off the mental gymnastics of being able to convince yourself that a computer program taking out a bunch of people in one go is less of a burden to carry on the conscious but I bet it's a lot to carry for those that have to program and command the actions to happen and for the ones that actually have to engage with those systems.
In this role, it should already be covered under the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention IMO.
Drones that kill anyone entering an area are just more sophisticated land mines.
It is covered by the Geneva Conventions, which makes indiscriminate killing a war crime.
Perhaps (and the uncertainty is part of the problem), but a more general scope is needed. If it's AI arguments will be made that no-one is responsible. Someone should be responsible for people getting killed, and justify themselves if needed, and face consequences if they cannot.
thus a massive waste money and resources and probably has worse PR than just planting mines.
Like everything to do with AI, AI weapons are 100 percent being pushed by monied interests rather than actual usefulness.
Sweet summer child, no they did not stop. And these things move fast and attack fast, just like missiles; there's no time for surrender.
It's been years, no one watches that anymore.
maybe simply this didn't work well enough for it to be worth the effort. there were already surrenders to drones (rare) there's no reason why automated drone couldn't do it as well
No, there's been advances in the program since its inception. They're still in use.