More (#2) from Wired for War:

Beyond just the factor of putting humans into dangerous environments, technology does not have the same limitations as the human body. For example, it used to be that when planes made high-speed turns or accelerations, the same gravitational pressures (g-forces) that knocked the human pilot out would also tear the plane apart. But now, as one study described of the F-16, the machines are pushing far ahead. “The airplane was too good. In fact, it was better than its pilots in one crucial way: It could maneuver so fast and hard that its pilots blacked out.”

If, as an official at DARPA observed, “the human is becoming the weakest link in defense systems,” unmanned systems offer a path around those limitations. They can fly faster and turn harder, without worrying about that squishy part in the middle. Looking forward, a robotics researcher notes that “the UCAV [the unmanned fighter jet] will totally trump the human pilot eventually, purely because of physics.” This may prove equally true at sea, and not just in underwater operations, where humans have to worry about small matters like breathing or suffering ruptured organs from water pressure. For example, small robotic boats (USV) have already operated in “sea state six.” This is when the ocean is so rough that waves are eighteen feet high or more, and human sailors would break their bones from all the tossing about.

Working at digital speed is another unmanned advantage that’s crucial in dangerous situations. Automobile crash avoidance technologies illustrate that a digital system can recognize a danger and react in about the same time that the human driver can only get to mid-curse word. Military analysts see the same thing happening in war, where bullets or even computer-guided missiles come in at Mach speed and defenses must be able to react against them even quicker. Humans can only react to incoming mortar rounds by taking cover at the last second, whereas “R2-D2,” the CRAM system in Baghdad, is able to shoot them down before they even arrive. Some think this is only the start. One army colonel says, “The trend towards the future will be robots reacting to robot attack, especially when operating at technologic speed. . . . As the loop gets shorter and shorter, there won’t be any time in it for humans.”