The relevant research papers, knowledge and skills are widely available across the world. There are some advanced courses at Chinese universities right now that can only be seen as 'AI for military'.
Its funny cause I haven’t heard of large scale Chinese or Russian drones flying over other countries targeting terrorists but ending up murdering children on more than one occasion.
Perhaps these technologies can be just evil and the US is the only country powerful enough to get away with using them.
I really have no stomach for just a vapid excuse, and I cannot fathom how so many people fall for it.
Using this logic then US can do anything with the exception of the things you are 100% sure China(or insert other country here) is not and will not do it.
This means surveillance, killer robots, black magic,genetically enhanced humans, illegal experiments and procedures, is a valid tool for US because "what if we have a war with China, we must have same tools as them"
The question is: should America compete in the arms race? I don't know. But there are big consequences either way.
Say US wants to spend a lot of many with some black magic consultant that could assassinate at a distance, you can justify it by launching a rumor that China does it too or probably does it or it will do it.
So you throw away any moral discussions by blaming China , they do it so we have no choice.
However that aside, AI is very big in China right now, and they're using it for numerous applications with thousands of students going through Chinese universities being taught how to handle this stuff. While the same doesn't apply to niche interests like genetically enhanced humans (who is working on that, really?), something like AI with thousands of capable researchers and engineers is a different story.
People don't like war, so it is natural that some people won't want to use their talent for making weapons.
At a minimum, I would like to know the civilian and non-civilian casualty rates of drone strikes, the definition of civilian being used, a good idea of what alternative military action the US would have taken if they didn't have drone capabilities, and the civilian and non-civilian casualty rates of those military strike options.
Without that, bringing up the drone strike casualties is nothing more than moral grandstanding based on how certain types of military action make you feel. Bonus points if you use the words "murdering children" in an attempt to bypass any logic and go straight for emotions.
Here's your definition of a "combatant".
Maybe it would be better for the world for Switzerland to have the most advanced AI. Why does it need to be the US, especially in the rapidly deteriorating political climate from the past 2 decades?
I don`t know how somebody rationalizes deaths of millions of civilians caused by USA/NATO army/interventions, which acted in non-defense, but I for sure know that they would not rationalize it anymore if they would happen to be on the receiving and of "democratization".
Source: My grandfather had orders to go and do exactly that when the dropping of the bombs ended the war.
The US had already been ridiculously effective using firebombing to level Japanese cities with their B-29s - so much so, they actually had to consider slowing down/changing targets to leave enough behind to use the Atomic Bomb on: there was almost nothing left worth hitting in strategic terms. By the time the bomb was dropped Japan was largely a beaten nation already considering surrender, Tokyo a smoldering rubble pile save for the Imperial Palace.
"The bomb simply had to be used -- so much money had been expended on it. Had it failed, how would we have explained the huge expenditure? Think of the public outcry there would have been... The relief to everyone concerned when the bomb was finished and dropped was enormous." - AJP Taylor.
Of course no one can say with certainty, but I certainly don't consider the answer to this question to be a simple one.
Even after Nagasaki, it took personal intervention from the Emperor and the foiling of an attempted coup for Japan to surrender.
Of course, dropping the bomb and developing the bomb are two distinct, albeit related, ethical questions.
To quote Wikipedia: "On the night of 9–10 March 1945, Operation Meetinghouse was conducted and is regarded as the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. 16 square miles (41 km2) of central Tokyo were annihilated, over 1 million were made homeless with an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths."
The bombing campaign leading up to the atom bombs specifically left about 5-6 cities relatively untouched. There were still major strategic targets left in August. They did this to test their effectiveness on cities, as a demonstration to the soviets, and to destroy morale.
Demonstrating their effectiveness to the soviets is why they didn't drop them in Tokyo bay.
[citation needed]
The US having nuclear weapons didn't work out so well for the 70,000-120,000 innocent civilians that were killed in the attack on Hiroshima.[1] I don't have handy access for how many innocent civilians were killed in Nagasaki but I would assume it was similar.
Would the Nazis have done the same thing? We dont know, and we cant know. But what we do know is that despite the Soviets/Russia, France, UK, China, India, Pakistan and probably Israel and North Korea having the capability, only the US has used nuclear weapons for indiscriminate & wholesale massacre.
So with respect, I really dont think you can go around trumpeting how it was "far better for the world" for this to happen when there is zero evidence to support that viewpoint, and at least 70,000-120,000 reasons to refute it.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
This does not seem like a valid position.
It has nothing to do with whether or not they would have used them. The reason that it was better for the US to have them is because Nazi Germany was conquering sovereign countries through military action, not to mention engaging in the industrialized genocide of millions of people.
Their position rests on the fact that most people agree that the Allies were the "good guys" and the Axis were the "bad guys" in WW2, which is not a position that really has to be defended.
If Germany or Soviet Russia had the opportunity to use nuclear weapons to impose their will on their enemies, one need only look at what happened to the victims who already fell under their dominion.
But we do know for an absolute fact is that the US did use nuclear weapnos to kill thousands and thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children (and for the sake of balance, we do know for an absolute fact that the Nazis did kill thousands and thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children, but not using nuclear weapons)
There is only one country with actual blood on their hands here with regard to nuclear weapons - the other nuclear powers have so far been able to show restraint.
As such, I find it pretty objectionable for people to suggest that it was "far better" this way, when the evidence really does not back it up.
I am not saying it is not best possible outcome for the world. Could it have been worse if the Nazis had for example nuked London in 1945 and killed a million? Sure, of course that might have happened, but it didn't actually happen. Perhaps had the nazis had that chance, the UK would have surrendered and there would have been peace and countless lives could have been saved and a completely new era of peace and prosperity begun? Or perhaps it would have also been untold slaughter and misery like the US did to Japan?
We just cant know, and so I object to people saying it was "far better" for history to have played out the way it did based mainly on - I suspect - the plot of Hollywood movies they've seen. History is written by the victors.
Anyway, this is way off topic and Godwin's Law has clearly been invoked. We should stop.
Regardless, the atom bombs were certainly not the worst things any country did in WWII. The US firebombing was far worse. Everyone did bad things in that war.
Stop using your modern sensibilities to judge them.
Secondly, your assertion that we can't know what Nazi Germany would have done with nuclear weapons is correct, but you seem to be interpreting that as meaning "all possible outcomes of Nazi Germany having nuclear weapons are equally as likely", which is absolutely not true and a common mistake to make in an argument.
How sure are you that the present-day United States is the "right" group to have AI-controlled murder-drones?