The issue of autonomous weapons is vastly different than the moral issues over drone warfare. Drone warfare is presently oversee by military personnel making decision to strike. Many argue the gray moral issues of drone warfare but it is hard to argue that drone warfare does not lessen civilian deaths in war. In WWI the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths was nearly 50%. In WWII, the ratio was 65%. Precision weapons, while not totally “precise,” are not what indiscriminate fire was in former conflicts. Novelists are always looking for the next gray area to weave into a story, this seems like a pretty interesting one!
