> Landmines work by the same principle

Not really. Mine fields are not certain death. They don’t always have the opportunity to announce themselves. Guns on automated fire control have the option of announcing themselves prior to engaging. They can also be turned off, something not easy to do with mines.

It’s painful but necessary to note that Hamas have a track record of weaponising children [1]. A child approaching the border is thus not guaranteed safe, and could reasonably be fired upon by a human or a gun on automated fire control. (Not arguing for killing kids. Just that “kids could get killed” isn’t an effective argument against this weapons platform.)

War is terrible. I don’t think automatic guns make it significantly more terrible. (Landmines do.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_child_suicide_bombers...

This would seem to be a strict improvement over antipersonnel landmines along every dimension, while providing the same necessary function of area denial.

In particular, you don't set up a few thousand roboguns and then leave them there when the conflict is over, which is responsible for most of the civilian deaths you're referring to, including those of children.

>Landmines work by the same principle. Many killed by landmines are children.

That makes no sense to me. Children being killed by landmines is an example of a lack of fire control. If the land mine had fire control it could detect enemy soldiers then children wouldn't have to die.