The line is where an automatic process target and execute a human being. When it is automated. The arming of a device is not sufficient to warrant a human interaction, and as such mines are also not allowed.
This should in my opinion always have been the case. Mines are indiscriminate and have proven to be wildly inhumane in several ways. Significantly, innocents are often killed.
But mines don’t paint the picture of what automated slaughter can lead to.
The point has been laid that when the conscious mind has to kill, it makes war have an important way to end, in the mind.
The dangers extend well beyond killing innocent targets, another part is the coldness of allowing a machine to decide, that is beyond morally corrupt. There is something terrifying about the very idea that facing one of these weapons, there is nothing to negotiate, the cold calculations that want to kill you are not human. It is a place where no human ever wants to be. But war is horrible. It’s the escalation of automated triggers that can lead to exponential death with no remorse which is just a terrible danger.
The murder weapons has nobody’s intent behind them, except very far back, in the arming and the program. It open for scenarios where mass murder becomes easy and terrifyingly cold.
Kind of like the prisoner’s dilemma shows us, that when war escalates, it can quickly devolve into revenge narratives, and when either side has access to cold impudent kills, they will use them. This removes even more humanity from the acts and the violence can reach new heights beyond our comprehension.
Weapons of mass destruction with automated triggers will eventually seal our existence if we don’t abolish it with impunity. It has been seen over and over how the human factor is the only grace that ever end or contain war. Without this component I think we are just doomed to have the last intent humans ever had was revenge, and the last emotions fear and complete hopelessness.