Aren't we already there?

Just ask the Afghans and Pakistanis... and the Iraqis, Yemenis...

The growing use of unmanned aircraft in combat situations raises huge moral and legal issues, and threatens to make war more likely as armed robots take over from human beings, according to an internal study by the Ministry of Defence.

The report warns of the dangers of an "incremental and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality", referring to James Cameron's 1984 movie, in which humans are hunted by robotic killing machines. It says the pace of technological development is accelerating at such a rate that Britain must quickly establish a policy on what will constitute "acceptable machine behaviour".

Just like the horribly irresponsible misuse of Tasers by the police force, drones remove several inhibitors to killing when soldiers aren't on the ground and judging the situation up close. If we are to live with such devices, we need to make it harder for authorities to use rather than easier. To start with, a list of how many innocent people have died would be ... educational.

We've talked about this before.

This never ends well.