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Boeing's Autonomous Fighter Jet Could Arrive Next Year (engadget.com)
Slashdot reader technology_dude writes in response to an Engadget report about Boeing's plans to develop an autonomous fighter jet: In Season 1, Episode 23 of Star Trek, the Enterprise visits two worlds that are at continuous war. The war is ran via computers, and people that are victims in a "hit" report to a facility to be terminated. Kirk tells the world's leaders that there can be no peace if there is no cost to the war. We avoid war because of its cost and ugliness. Remove that and you remove the reason to stop. It looks like we may need the Captain to intervene here on planet earth. We seem hellbent on automating our militaries. The report says Boeing's recently unveiled autonomous fighter jet, called the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, is expected to arrive as soon as 2020. "The aircraft is designed to fly alongside crewed jets during combat, performing early warning tests, intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance," reports Engadget. The company says the jets will cost a "fraction" of a manned fighter.
It's clear that the future of traditional war will be air power. Bombers taking off from Missouri, the heartland of the US, were used in the Iraq war. Their is no distance they can't cover with assisted fueling.
Why didn't the ships in Star Wars auto-fly and auto-target/kill?
Spielberg didn't see the future. James Cameron sort of got it with Terminator, except the machines weren't very good shots.
Automated war is terrifying.
From the ground, motion detection and enemy identification from a mile is not out of our reach (I'm sure some our working on this, it's not complicated).
It's this sort of tech that will result in a nuclear exchange (EMP = stop that shit). In my opinion.
How easy is this stuff? Here's an auto-aiming Nerf sentry turrent:
https://newatlas.com/nerf-vulc...
What's my point? I don't actually know. But automating war creates more enemies. Not waging war, not so much.
BlameBillCosby.com
Or it could be that your numbers from the Iraq war are off by more an order of magnitude. The Iran-Iraq war had far higher casualty counts and was under two million. For reference, the Mongols kills more people in the region of Iraq than was killed in the entire Iran-Iraq war and the Moguls killed far, far, far more when they conquered most of India. When there were fewer people ways were still found to kill more without advanced weapon technology, but do continue with your narrative, I enjoy fiction as much as history.