I never said that we would never use UCAVs. That's ridiculous. We used Hellfire equipped UAVs in Afganistan and Yemen. In some conflict in the future, UCAVs will probably be preferable to sending in manned combat planes. What I said is, in a potential future conflict
I think it will be quite a long time (30+ years) before it [the military] is comfortable with UCAVs making life or death decisions on its own. Those decisions could always be verified remotely, but in a future conflict with an advanced advesary (perhaps the French?) that link may be cut off, either by electronic warfare and/or kill vehicles that could take out satellites used to communicate with UCAVs.
Of course this is hypothetical. And yes, we haven't had our command and communications cut off. However, a future advesary may have that ability. Would we trust a UCAV, cut off from human control, to fly independently, identify and destroy enemy targets behind enemy lines? What if those targets were civilians? Or friendly troops? You've answered my statement by admitting you'd refuse to get on an automous UAV. Yet you'd trust it to identify and kill enemy targets? As long as we have control of the UCAV, it wouldn't be a problem, but ask it to make an independent judgement, that potentially could be a problem.
I agree with you, I would be uncomfortable getting on an automated transport. However, there are plenty of things that could be transported besides personnel--supplies, weapons, vehicles, etc. We already have UAVs that fly recon automously. Tranport and other mission profiles isn't a big stretch of the imagination.
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Mongol General: ...Conan, what is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!
Mongol General: That is good.