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Comment by harimau777 | Hacker News Reader

The amount of shooting is influenced by circumstances. That is to say, if one side doesn't have to risk people dying, then they may be more willing to start a war.

For a given amount of shooting, the number of civilian casualties is not necessarily constant. It's possible that AI may be more prone to targeting civilians or makes it easier to get away politically with killing civilians.

Not all shooting is equally effective. It's possible that AI weapons may give some faction the ability to crush anyone who opposes them.

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> if one side doesn't have to risk people dying, then they may be more willing to start a war

We already have this with ranged weaponry and autocrats indifferent to the liquidation of fresh troops.

> the number of civilian casualties is not necessarily constant

Civilians aren’t dogfighting. I’m with you for ground-based robots, or anti-personnel drones.

What about AI bombers, which is just a step away from AI fighters (and is probably significantly easier to implement)? Civilians could absolutely be on the receiving end there.

> What about AI bombers, which is just a step away from AI fighters

For a non-peer adversary, our bombers are already invincible. For peer adversaries, the threat model is similar to missiles.

Wouldn’t AI bombers simply be better cruise missiles?

> Wouldn’t AI bombers simply be better cruise missiles?

Technically no, since a bomber isn’t intended to be expendable. But functionally yes.

> What about AI bombers, which is just a step away from AI fighters (and is probably significantly easier to implement)?

AI bombers are not cruise missiles. They must avoid or deal with radars, flak, SAMs, and fighters.

The life of a 21st century bomber is closer to playing several games of chess at once than it is to playing at bein a cruise missile.

I feel like this would just trigger a nuclear reaction by the people who had the less precision (AI) weapons.

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