US Army nears competition that could lead to robots directly engaging the enemy

When I read this article, how everyone seemed so excited that this is the next big thing on the battlefield.  All I visualized while reading this was the Terminator movie, where SkyNet starts WWIII and set the machines at the facility to killing any human they could hunt down.  Yeah us, we will be designing the very weapon that kills off humanity. No, worries when you don't get to make decisions!

Army to begin end of humanity...

We also forget the ethical dilemma of having thinking machines that make the decision to kill a human being. I am one of those who believe in the inherent depravity of all of humanity but they can be redeemed.  Thinking machines cannot be redeemed and when they misbehave, IE killing entire village of every man, women, children and animals who is punished?
What about Asimov three rules of robotics, that every keyboard jockey talks about will save us from rogue AIs.  By creating them just to kill, we are making it so there is no moral quandary that must be faced by the military, developers and the machines themselves. Just encase you have forgotten here is the three rules we have been fed over and over, that are supposed to save us.

Isaac Asimov "Three Laws of Robotics"

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

So, all I guess we can hope for is that our robot overlords make us slaves instead of extermination!

Pentagon seeks 'ethicist' to oversee military artificial intelligence

Come on, developing killing machines that one day will probably wipe out life as we know it causing you some anxiety?
The author at the closing of the article take a small blurb from a defense contractor think tank, and I quote "“AI ethicists at the Pentagon would have to be capable of supporting the entire breadth of AI applications all the way from when is it acceptable to use artificial intelligence in a weapons system to how do we think about the acceptable and appropriate uses of personnel data.”
Sheppard suggested that the new appointee should be willing to “get their hands dirty” by visiting the frontline." Having an AI access to my personal data just seems a little extreme doesn't it?  Having a AI drone determine which village should or should not survive is one thing but we don't want competition with facebook when it comes to what a computer knows about me or at least before it kills me.

Here is the link, you make up your own mind while you still can:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/07/pentagon-military-artificial-intelligence-ethicist