Autonomous Weapon System- A brief history of military conflicts proximities.

Autonomous Weapon System, defined as "the weapon that can select and engage targets without any human intervention" A fully autonomous weapon has strong connection with robotic technology and artificial intelligence in terms of physical technology. On the other hand it's also facing the problem of ethical questions, human intelligence and human judgment. 

In speculative design, base on the existing facts, technology, knowledge, possibilities, we are to speculate how would the future warfare to be like in the context of AWS(Autonomous Weapon System). 

By creating a mind map, I came up with pretty detailed things AWS might be relating to, in few large categories, which are Politics, Loss of Human Life, Technology, Human, Level of Autonomy, Interfaces, Hacking, Intelligence, War/Conflicts. And from those I broke it down even further. The following picture is the mind map I have created.

Now at this point, I solely interested in the proximity of warfare, what I meant by proximity is that the physical battle distance of individual unit. For example, before guns were invented, the military engaging each other in hand to hand combat, knifes and swords. 

After the gunpowder was invented by Chinese and further promoted the uses of cannons and rifles in the battlefield. Musketeers were utilised as early as 14th century. The relationship of soldiers and their weapon were starting to change as the technology had allowed them to engage with their enemy from a longer distance( if not counted bow and arrows) yet the firearms were not as efficient and easy to use, the close-combat units were still the main force in an army.

   Musketeers of Ming Dynasty, China 

It wasn't until the 18th century, the military forces shifted, armies are wildly using rifles as their primary weapons. The battlefield and warfare have dramatically changed, technology played an important role at war, winning or losing a conflict, to an extend, depends on their weaponry and less combating skills. Melee combat has transformed into shooting from a distance.

18th century Rifleman 

First World War, firearms have already became the standard equipment for any military personals. Moreover, combat ready vehicles, like tanks and aircraft were introduced. Technology at this point, has officially took over the battlefield. Equipments are as important as strategies (if not more important) in a heat of battle. The distance between two fighting armies once more been extended into a greater distance.

Fast forward to the Cold War, Cuban missile crisis, pull the fighting distance between two sides even longer. Although there wasn't any missile launched from Cuba to attack the U.S, the technology at the time already possessed the capability to remotely trigger a long distance rocket for mass destruction of human population. 

And now, unmanned drones are greatly used by U.S militaries in the Middle East, the technology transformed warfare in a significant way, from melee combat to command a missile attack from the other side of the Earth. The proximity becomes longer and longer, but how far can it go? Humanity has yet be able to colonise the outer space enough for military conflicts to happen in the space, but that could happen in the future, it's already been predict and I do believe some nations are conducting researches and development for orbital weaponries...but what happen after that?