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Your entire argument seems to be built around paranoid and hysteria and things you've seen in sci-fi movies.

I'm a mechanical engineer by training and a software engineer by profession--the amount of work to create a robot whose sole purpose is to open fire upon things matching the heat signature and rough shape of a person is well within the reach of even a small university research lab, much less a defense contractor.

There is no paranoia or hysteria here; the tools and methods have already been developed.

They will constantly and forever be improved.

The nature of improvement will be technical in nature ("Did it engage the designated target fast enough? Can we make it easier to manufacture? Is the precision of the weapon carried able to be increased?"); there is no reason for the rules of engagement or anything else to be improved, because it is an arbitrary decision--a decision placed, as I've suggested, in the hands of the rich and powerful and least likely to be empathetic with the intended targets.

There's only so much training you can give to someone in nine months before they're in combat.

Quite so, and a nice part of that is that it is hard to beat basic empathy and humanity out of a person--the machine, by contrast, never had it to begin with.

The soldiers, though they may make mistakes, are more likely to be able to think critically and show compassion and mercy.

And there's also the fact that machines are a helluva a lot less likely to think it's funny to piss on a Koran or to go rape some of the locals.

No, they'll just kill them instead, as per orders.

EDIT:

We already have drones that kill and injure human beings. They're called missiles and torpedoes, and the third world has plenty of them too.

Those are munitions, not drones. Most importantly, they are deployed by human beings and are controlled by same.

They will constantly and forever be improved.

For certain definitions of improved. Military victory will always be considered more important than civilian survival, so I don't think you can expect machines to improve the moral calculus of war (which always tends to total war).

Interesting point. The machine soldiers would solve the problem of rampant soldiers raping locals.

But if you look at drones, haven't the drones been around long enough? Their algorithm still seems to be faulty considering all the civilian casualties they have caused.

I don't think current drones are automated. They're glorified RC planes. It's still a human piloting and firing the weapons, albeit remotely.

Compared to area bombing like rolling thunder in Vietnam or Coventry or Hamburg in ww2

Point noted