Will technology ever replace the common soldier?

Yes, but you're not recognizing the complications of AI, motor skills, independant and creative thinking, etc. Wars are no longer fought from the trenches, todays warfare requires leadership, tactical planning and strategic thinking all the way down to the lowliest private. Even in wars like WWI & WWII I think we would have been hard presse to create AI sophisticated enough to effectively fight those wars (if this tech existed back then).

Too true.
The problem is robotics don't have the adaptability of humans. Humans have the benefit of emotion, logical thought, irrational thought, etc etc etc. All factors that go towards good warfighting. No robot can replace the MK. 1 Grunt on the ground.
 
"You can fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman Legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."
T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War
 
zander_0633 said:
NO? how come?

You can, but then the only way you can win is to kill all humans... and the war itself becomes somewhat meaningless. Unless we are fighting for water, food, oil etc.

The problem by making humans unnecessary in war is that you naturally reduce human loss and then the criteria (for politicians) to go to war becomes much lower. And this will provoke a lot more wars because of minor disagreements.

War needs to awful and terrible, its the best way to avoid it!
 
The most difficult situation would be teaching somthing to kill this person but to spare the life of that person and if we follow Asimov's 3 laws that becomes impossible.

  1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to 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 Laws.
I think we will always rely on the good old human being and the advancement of technolgy that will assist a grunt but not take away his job.
 
Well the more diverse a military the better, the USA is a good reflection of that logic. I figure we will have robotics on the field and that robot soldiers might some day be built, but not without humans in the same squads. You'd want to have them mixed so that you can send the people instructions to the machines, then the machines can do the most dangerous work while living soldiers can act as support and organizers.

A robotic warrior would be an excellent edition to any army simply due to its expendability, but you'd have to make a lot of them to really have any strategic effect from their development.
 
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