@UncleFester speaks truth about the realities of autonomous weapons release, at least over much of the UxV mission set. CAS and BAI probably will not see people out of the loop. I definitely agree we're not soon doing BAI or CAS with machine autonomy (except maybe for deploying countermeasures).
I envision exceptions for deep strike UAVs - when jammed and in harm's way, I'd expect a UAV doing SEAD/DEAD or hitting a well-defined target (even if mobile) deep in Red real estate will someday soon be cleared to engage on its own. Probably within well defined limits, maybe matching pre-allocated signatures from a signatures library that controls part of the ROE, and after positive control got that UAV to where it pushes to target. But that's an area we're going to be headed if we leverage carrier-compatible UAVs where we might find them very useful against peers.
UUVs are outside our UAV discussion, but there's common cognitive dissonance. Lots of influencers and deciders seem to believe we can somehow have stealthy vehicles, that communicate effectively enough to have a person in the decision loop, getting weapons on target in other-than-permissive areas ... pick no more than two and I think we've got a workable solution.
Though my favorite part of the high endurance USV/UUV decision processes is who gets to play Maytag Repairman when an expensive toy breaks on deployment?
Please forgive the party foul for mentioning naval mines. We're the Good Guys(tm). We don't plan offensive or defensive mining operations anymore. Even if mine warfare is a right answer to some grand tactical questions.
But if we did, I'd expect that to be a job for the T-400 (T-800's "less sophisticated" cousin) driving into some opposed chokepoint or harbor.
SURFOR and Maritime needs to face that contingency too in ASuW. We've got advocates for distributed lethality expressed as armed UAVs and USVs (like Ghost-class optionally manned platforms) carrying ASCMs. Where LOS comms relays like lasers are not useful to keep at least a person informed in the loop, and RF does not work for us, we might need to allow armed UxVs to push to a target basket and engage autonomously. I was around Harpoon enough to shudder at the thought we'd allow a UxV to put threats to white shipping in the air or water, though the Raytheon, Lockmart, and Boeing dudes say we're much better than when early block Harpoon was a threat to pretty much anything with a solid return in the terminal phase.