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FAWS comments on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2 - Less Wrong
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America will be killing those people with or without robots. We already have ways of wiping all of the enemy combatants off the map if we want to (for example nukes). Military technology is primarily about finding ways to 1) kill fewer of our own soldiers and 2) kill fewer people who aren't enemy combatants.
Ignoring the question whether that's desirable or not (politics is the mindkiller) reducing the cost of killing those people will lead to more of those people killed in marginal situations where such considerations matter.
Yes, that's one of the good arguments against robot soliders I mentioned above. We're more likely to not care about the fate of our robot soliders, and so would be less hesitant to send them into battle. Though it's still an open question whether that effect would trump any increased monetary cost per soldier (if any) and whether the other benefits outweigh such concerns.
Human soldiers perform horribly in terms of following the rules of war, and above that do absolutely horrible things sometimes.