this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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Semi-autonomous doesnt really mean anything and is a deliberately sensationalist headline.
The key technological discussion is when it's not a human pulling the trigger.
Even guns are semi autonomous by this definition
I'd have to assume it has some sort of finding/tracking tech as well to stay on target. Trying to compare this to a handgun is just silly.
The thing is, will it select a target and fire without manual intervention? I'm less worried about it moving autonomously than killing. Not that in this case I think it will make any difference if a civilian enters l encounters it.
The CIWS Phalanx has been doing this since the 70s. The main point is that it's implying something new about it's semi-autonomous nature that hasnt previously been used and is thus noteworthy. A handgun automates much of labour involved with applying kinetic force to another human being, reducing it down to a button press that anyone can do.
Trying to suggest this is somehow newsworthy and that they arent just fishing for clickbait headlines is silly.
Australia already has area-denial sentries that autonomously shoot at any motion (with some parameters regarding size and speed).
These, or a similar techology was used for a while along the Korean DMZ until we started talking about building autonomous drones.
One of the shot-down airliner incidents (Flight 007, maybe?) involved a misdesignation of a sensor contact by a US Aegis missileboat system. The plane was pinging with F4 Phantom Radar (which ruled out an ordinary airliner). The Aegis required a human to authorize an attack, but it reported the contact as a bogey (unknown, peresumed to be hostile)...
— Apparently, I posted this without finishing it. —
So that instance might be considered the first historical case of an autonomous weapon system accidentally killing a civilian (at least partially civilan) target, given the human doing the authorizing had inadequate data to make an informed decision.
(A lot of cruelty of our systems comes from authorizations based on partial data. Law enforcement in the US is renowned for massaging their warrants to make them easy on the signing magistrate, resulting in kids and dogs slain during SWAT raids in poor neighborhoods. I'm ranting.)