Lewis Page - an excuse for a journalist
I've just looked at that Register article on UA 'written' by Mr L Page Lt RN (Retd). What a load of hoop.
'Robot wars' indeed. Clearly he hasn't done anything more than a cursory search of head-line grabbing articles popping up on Google.
Truely autonomous systems (that make machine-driven 'value' judgements) are a long, long way off from being deployed operationally. Moreover, the standard of 'behaviour' of an autonomous system that can deliver lethal effect is considerably higher than an operator-controlled system, in order to minimise 'runaway' effects; in other words and autonomous FFF system is more likely to default to 'weapons tight' than a conventional system because of the consequences of machine-driven weapons release. There are a lot of open-source reports (not news articles) from reputable orgnaisations which argue these points. A read of JDN 2/11 would be a start - but that didn't stop the Telegraph sensationalsing the JDN, referring to 'Terminator-like' robots.
WP