Robots and War

Robot armies won't eliminate killing. It will make it more suddenly terrible. It is one thing to give a group of men an order to kill other men or a whole people, but if it is made using a clean interface that will not reflect the horror inherent in such orders it will become easier to exterminate a whole people. I think intellectual morality will tend to keep the robot armies in check. In fact in their first uses they might actually reduce enemy casualties since a commander would be more willing to risk a robot than one of his men, but if a war goes on long enough or there are enough wars where robots engage against humans I think there could be a gradual erosion of the reluctance to engage to kill. Because the one sure way to make sure that an enemy does not rise up again to fight is to kill all of them. And without having to see the results of such orders in person there will be less reason not to.