The future of warfare - robot or nobot?

[Greyblades]

A robot would not necessarily be as easily destroyed (see above, there can be many types of robots), wars would be far easier to sell to the population.

The question was if there was a cheap counter to robots, I cannot say there is a perfect counter but there is no reason to believe that robotics would magically become immune to current weaponry.

And about cost, I'm not so sure, current missiles often cost a million or more per piece, the computer hardware required may be in current mass-produced cellphones and part of their worry is that once the software is developed, it can be copied and spread at almost no cost like any other software. In the worst case it could be obtained from a disabled robot or even by remotely hacking one.
A sufficiently versatile AI might even be able to work in different kinds of robots so that insurgents or terrorists could use the AI of a sophisticated robot and let it learn to use their home-built crappy bot to murder people they don't like.

When first mobile phones appeared (at least in Ukraine) they were so expensive that only very rich businessmen/gangsters could afford them. Usually such people sported a thumb-thick gold chain around their neck, Mercedes 600, a jet of their own and a mobile phone. Twenty years later they became quite affordable (even in Ukraine). Gadgets are prone to get cheaper therefore ubiquitous.

Most people still require long term payment plans to afford the newest cellphones, and you wont lose any wars by having outdated cellphones
The cost I refer to is replacing an entire nations millitary, which would require the development and manufacture of robotic replacments for every single piece of millitary equipment and personel in a nation's arsenal, not to mention constand updating and upgrading. Millitaries are expensive enough with human operation; automation is an extra cost that most wont be able to afford, so I predict a somewhat limited use for quite a while

Some people may not want them to make a difference, they may just want them to be able to find and kill every human in a certain area, that's part of the worry in the open letter as I understand it.

Yep. What I said will likely only apply to first world nations, and I dare say the less scrupulous nations implementing indiscriminate killer drones will pressure them into deploying thier own long before drones can be programmed to tell friend from foe reliably.

As I said above, robots do not hve to be human-sized or human-like. And they do not have the same weight restrictions as humans. They can either be faster, nimbler and smaller or a around the same size but carry a lot more metal. And you could combine them. Think bulky rmored street cleaners with swarms of flying drones that search buildings in a networked fashion. If you kill one, the others will close in on the last known location and try to swarm you etc. Then your bullets may be insufficient, especially if the machines are faster and deadly accurate while you are peeing your pants.

Yep, I didnt say it was a perfect counter, but there's no reason to believe each individual drone will be any less vulnerable to a large bullet traveling at supersonic speeds than anything else, assuming you can hit it before it kills you. Plus the same thing can be said of a squad of soldiers, shoot one and the rest will be gunning for you.

Sufficiently advanced robots would be able to stop most projectiles launched at them (whether with lasers or counter-projectiles).

Lazers and counter projectiles do not work against supersonic projectile weaponry and there isnt an armour made that is immune to all modern ordinance.