If they had access to them in Ukraine, both sides would already be using them I expect. Right now jamming of drones is a huge obstacle. One way it's dealt with is to run literal wired drones with massive spools of cable strung out behind them. A fully autonomous drone would be a significant advantage in this environment.

I'm not making a values judgment here, just saying that they will absolutely be used in war as soon as it's feasible to do so. The only exception I could see is if the world managed to come together and sign a treaty explicitly banning the use of autonomous weapons, but it's hard for me to see that happening in the near future.

Edit: come to think of it, you could argue a landmine is a fully autonomous weapon already.

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scottyah 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Hah, I had the same realization about landmines. Along with the other commenter, really it would be better to add intelligence to these autonomous systems to limit the nastiness of the currently-deployed systems. If a landmine could distinguish between a real target and an innocent civilian 50yrs later, it's be a lot better.

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kgwxd 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It's weird that people still think that the people who's job it is to kill people, or make things that kill people, really care about people more than the killing part. They don't give a shit who blows up, as long as no one comes knocking on their door about it.

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jacquesm an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Many landmines disarm after a while.

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mothballed 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A landmine blowing up the enemy civilian 50 years later is probably seen as an advantage by the force deploying them. A bit like "salting the earth."

	▲	scottyah 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Depressingly true.