>There is zero current evidence that benevolent governments will own the robots,
But that is up to the people and their governments to decide. You seem to miss the fact that governments are made by people and for the people, and not made by the billionaires. Even a billionaire have a single vote.
Government can outlaw the private ownership of combat autonomous robots if that is what the people want.
> But that is up to the people and their governments to decide.
This is laughably naïve in 2026. There's been massive amounts of voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other forms of legal vote-rigging in the US, not to mention the tremendous amount of propaganda that's been fed to the country for decades in support of the oligarchs' agenda.
And then we get into the even darker possibilities, such as Trump's repeated suggestions that we don't need to vote again, that he could have a third term, his thanks to Musk for delivering him the election, etc.
And frankly, if you think that the disposition of the hypothetical robots is up to the people to decide, then surely you must believe that the current state of Western governments in 2026 genuinely represents the will of the people. If you extend that line of thought out logically, then just as surely you must conclude that there is, at least, a very high probability that the people would decide to give the robots to the oligarchs, even knowing that those robots would kill said people.
But that is up to the people and their governments to decide. You seem to miss the fact that governments are made by people and for the people, and not made by the billionaires. Even a billionaire have a single vote.
Government can outlaw the private ownership of combat autonomous robots if that is what the people want.