One of the main areas of autonomous robot development has been ocurring in the area of bomb disposal and now more recently even robots with offensive capabilities.  One of the concerns that scientists and others have is the fact that we do not currently have the capability of giving these robots the same ability to judge a situation appropriately to determine how to react.  If you make it easier and easier for technology to be employed on a battlefield (look at all the drones and other robots, remote controlled and otherwise) does that make it easier to kill or easier to decide to get involved in a conflict, etc.  Are we losing our ability to judge because we have access to these machines that can do the dirty work for us?