Lets say this fails and a bunch of kids are blown up, who will be held responsible?
Importantly, how will we ensure an individual is accountable rather than the corporation being at fault.
Importantly, how will we ensure an individual is accountable rather than the corporation being at fault.
History suggests no-one:
http://legaciesofwar.org/resources/cluster-bomb-fact-sheet/
See also: land mines.
[1]: https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-s...
Yesterday I posted a compilation of Apache gunships blowing up black and white silhouettes of people and massive expanses of land. I don't buy for a second that the US military or their contractors really know anything about the people they are killing, beyond the fact that they have identified with certain groups for reasons that could range from nationalism to just plain self-preservation and a salary. It is undebatable that most of the 1,000,000s of people who died in the Middle East in the last 15 years were not guilty of any crime, and even if they were the US consistently provided no proof before incinerating them extra-judicially.
Obviously, this makes great training data for ML algorithms.
The moral hazard of autonomous and remote controlled weapons isn't that there is no responsibility, but that the threshold for use is lowered.
The "system" is already an excuse. Example the Tarnak Farm Incident where a US pilot killed 4 Canadian soldiers: "... as much as the F-16 pilots bear final responsibility for the fratricide incident, there existed other systemic shortcomings in air coordination and control procedures, as well as mission planning practices by the tactical flying units, that may have prevented the accident had they been corrected."[5]
Despite the fact he "flagrantly disregarded a direct order", "exercised a total lack of basic flight discipline", and "blatantly ignored the applicable rules of engagement". He was merely fined $5,700.