This is a very good point. It's always good to be reminded that we're already living in the future.
That said, I feel like aothman is discussing real artificial intelligence, that is, an entity capable of making a conscious decision that it wants to, in this case, fire the missiles. If I had to guess, if predator drones gain the ability to "decide" for themselves whether or not to fire their missiles, it will be built on a system of complex rules, and not because they're "intelligent". Potayto, Potahto? Maybe. I'm not an AI researcher and I don't even come close to understanding human intelligence, but I feel like even if it is just a complex system of rules, it's at a much deeper level than we'll be able to simulate soon.
This is not a new phenomenon; the first use of autonomous killer robots was in 1943, in the form of acoustically guided torpedoes.
I'm surprised that you are so pessimistic about your research that you think ethics won't even be relevant in year 2205. Holy cow you must think AI is hard.