This is a tough issue, because around the edges a lot of gray exists.

Yes, autonomous weapons absolutely give nation states more ability to target individuals for assassination and to destabilize governments. The US has a dark history of engaging in those kind of behaviors.

On the other hand, smart weapons and drones absolutely have the capacity to reduce civilian casualties, and already have a track record for doing so.

That doesn’t mean things don’t go tragically wrong sometimes. They do. But to a civilian on the ground, smart weapons can mean that they don’t become a target of bombs raining down almost indiscriminately.

Two of my business partners were children in Iraq during the first Gulf War. The stories they tell are horrifying, with the residential neighborhoods where they lived exploding into flame as people ran to escape a bombing campaign.

It’s easy to argue against the morality of that particular war, of course. We had no business bombing residential neighborhoods in Iraq in the first place.

But it’s still worth noting the autonomous weapons with a human in the loop greatly reduce what militaries see as the necessity for those kind of campaigns.