9 Big Problems With Future Scientific Breakthroughs

4. Robotic Warfare

Technology is making warfare simultaneously safer and much more deadly.

On the plus side, sending drones and robots in for combative, reconnaissance and rescue purposes means that the business of war can be conducted without putting live humans in places they're likely to get shot.

On the downside, with the risks to soldiers' lives eliminated, the military can take greater risks using deadlier force without having to worry about the danger this poses to troops. It could be argued that it is the risk of losing human lives that prevents wars from descending into chaos (or more chaos than usual).

If, in the future, we reach the point at which wars are fought with robots, then civilian casualties move from regrettable collateral to the sole victims of conflicts.