It seems a safe assumption, unfortunately, that humanity will persist in conducting warfare, as evidenced over all recorded history. New technology has historically made killing more efficient, for example with the invention of the longbow, artillery, armored vehicles, aircraft carriers, or nuclear weapons. Many view that each of these new technologies has produced a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), as they have fundamentally changed the ways in which war is waged. Many now consider robotics technology a potentially new RMA, especially as we move towards more and more autonomous systems in the battlefield.

The lecture of Ron Arkin delivered during the conference entitled "Machine Ethics and Machine Law" co-organized by Department for the Philosophy of Law and Legal Ethics at the Jagiellonian University, Institute of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, and Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in November 2016.