President has the right to use drones in the USA on American citizens

Pakistani/Afghan lives are worth less than American ones apparently. Don't be surprised when these people retaliate in revenge and if and when they do blame yourselves and your own governments.

The 'first use' in the European theatre will be against a supposed 'Muslim terror' target, perhaps offshore or in somewhere like Kosovo or the Med or something like that. From there, it will be constantly stepped up, until there is a constant overhead drone presence in all areas and regular airstrikes on homes in Luton, etc. Well, of course, the latter may be intended as irony, but time will tell if it really is just a joke.

It won't. Because you get different options in a land with a regular police force, with easy and fast access and security services that actually work.

What? When everyone agrees that drones are the best method of all and they can be run safely from an air-conditioned office complex by video-game buffs at zero personal risk? God, the options are so damn attractive, I'm surprised the US haven't already replaced their own police force with drones, in these cost-concious times.

Best option in certain theatres of operation, like sparsely populated terrain that's both desert and mountainous and not conducive to normal police investigation.

Suggesting that they're equally adept in built up cities - where line of sight is all but impossible unless you're directly overhead - is plain ignorance of how such things work and a complete abandonment of common sense.

And 2; "video game buffs"? Are you even pretending to be rational in this conversation any more? All of the operators of UAVs for both the RAF and USAF are, at the moment, fully qualified combat pilots who've undertaken training that lasts longer and is more complex and rounded than most degrees.

Some thoughts about the potentially dangerous future of this technology:


Experts have estimated that fully automatic robots could be viable in this field in 20-30 years. The beardy guy in the video has also raised an interesting point elswhere:

"This is going to be big, big money. But actually there is no transparency, no legal process. The laws of war allow for rights of surrender, for prisoner of war rights, for a human face to take judgments on collateral damage. Humans are thinking, sentient beings. If a robot goes wrong, who is accountable? Certainly not the robot."

Loved the Samsung ad. Let's hope they haven't written something into all those Tabs and SIIIs and they aren't going to suddenly turn killer on us when the Pentagon defines us as "filled with moral turpitude and hostile to the United States".

I don't all the american vast gun collections are going to be that much use against drones

I wonder what will happen if tomorrow the Americans launch a drone strike against a "terrorist" in central London and dismiss the civilian casualties as collateral damage.

What? When everyone agrees that drones are the best method of all and they can be run safely from an air-conditioned office complex by video-game buffs at zero personal risk? God, the options are so damn attractive, I'm surprised the US haven't already replaced their own police force with drones, in these cost-concious times.

I am from time to time uttering what we humans in these situations call a "joke", you may have come across the concept when not busy negging people, something I hardly ever bother with myself, as I prefer argument.

Also, is it a joke? I am trying to remember which newspaper it was, but I read interviews with commanders and staff in Nevada recently (was it the BBC website?) and they were indeed recruiting from amongst video-game fanatics within the armed forces.

It wouldn't be an act of war, because it would be legal in the US, therefore the UK govt would (as always) succumb and permit any such actions.

Are you actually trying to comparing the UK to the failed state of Pakistan? Half this mess wouldn't exist if Pakistan didn't support the Taliban during the 1990s, and if the ISI didn't continue to support them today.

Don't forget Operation Cyclone under which the Americans funded the "Mujahideen" against the Soviet Union with hundreds of millions of dollars. Yesterday's freedom fighters = today's terrorists.

No. There are other reasons. It''ll cost too much, human infantry is much more mobile, human infantrymen can be trained more, human infantrymen are more reliable, people would have to reload the robot anyway, human infantry can be organised more, people are always there to use, not having human infantrymen in the military would cause an uproar, too many cuts are happening, people would lose their jobs, and the traditions of the infantry would be ruined.

I disagree. Fully automated systems will be as cheap as training and maintaining a single infantry unit in the future. The cost of technology always falls after all.

Mobility and organisation of robotic soldiers can easily surpass that of a human. Robots don't have to have two legs after all. They can roll, walk, fly...

Munitions can be a problem, but you'd expect a robot to be more efficient.

The tradition of a military, the employment and the skills it teaches would be the greatest loss to the country should robots fight all battles. Of course, a large robotics industry would create more jobs in many different sectors.

Finally, I base my argument of fully automated systems being banned due to the inability to differentiate between a civilian (under duress for example), and an enemy on articles such as:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/22/human_rights_watch_says_ban_killer_robots/

Well, that's all lovely then, so long as it creates jobs in the robotics industry, I mean who gives a **** about killing and terrorising thousands of civilians along the way? Mere collateral damage cannot get in the way of the booming video games-turned-into-killing-machines industry.

You've taken what I've said there completely out of context.