The US gov (at least under the current president and under at least 90% of the current candidates) does not care about non-lethal weapons. It prefers killing them, even over blinding them instead (as the article says), or capturing them [1].<p>As for automated killing robots, is anyone naive enough to think they will wait until they can &quot;perfectly identify an enemy combatant&quot;?<p>First off, the definition of enemy combatant is <i>already</i> waaay too vague, to include just about any male in the Middle East.<p>Second, the gov is making <i>even now</i>, in 2015, plenty of &quot;mistakes&quot; with drone strikes (see the hospital strike, the killing of the mother of the guy who they were supposed to kill, but had switched phones) - and they&#x27;ve been using them for more than a decade.<p>After all of these facts, there&#x27;s nothing that can convince me that the robots will only kill the &quot;right people&quot; when they start launching them on the battlefield.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theintercept.com&#x2F;document&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;14&#x2F;small-footprint-operations-5-13" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theintercept.com&#x2F;document&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;14&#x2F;small-footprint...</a>