GenZedong

Very interesting. Some thoughts:

A difference between drones and robot soldiers is that drones are really not new technology. Radio control of various types of flying machines has been around, in one form or another, since World War I; and drones have been used, albeit in a limited function, in World War II and most wars since. What makes them, in the 21st century, suddenly an important weapon is the miniaturization of camera technology (so the drone operator can guide the craft as if he were in the air), and the development of things like FPV control systems. But the remote-controlled flying machine is in fact old and tested technology. Fibre-optic drones are in some ways even simpler, though the system of relaying control signals is exotic; for the concept of a craft connected to its operator by a cable is a reversion to pre-radio technology.

A machine which can walk and balance like a human, on the other hand, is much more complex and "experimental" -- the more so if it is equipped with machine learning. People have been trying to build such things since complex clockwork was developed, and probably before, and the result has always been unsatisfactory; simply because walking and balancing on two legs is a much more complicated matter than it appears. The human brain, as probably the world's most complex and astonishing computer -- and the only "machine" which makes tools in its own likeness -- manages it all. Whether humanoid robot soldiers are possible depends on whether we have finally been able to turn the corner and make a machine with something like our own balance system and situational awareness, something that can't easily be tripped or defeated. (I can imagine "tiger traps" of the kind used by the People's Army of Vietnam during their war with the US imperialists being quite effective; maybe even being built into city streets). Otherwise, something like a small remote-controlled tracked vehicle seems to me more likely.