Killer (Unconstitutional?) Drones With Artificial Intelligence

Just days after the AP published a survey that suggests that 1/2 of Americans support the use of domestic surveillance drones, AFP is reporting that the Pentagon is developing drones with artificial intelligence that will be able to kill without human assistance. According to Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force, the drones are being designed as “ethical” warriors that could wage war in a more “humane” way than their human counterparts:

It is not my belief that an unmanned system will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are capable of.

While the probability of an unmanned system "going rogue" is smaller than an individual soldier, I'd make the case that allowing a computer to decide who lives and who dies is removing the Executive Branch (and the inherit chain of command from president to foot soldier) from such decisions, which would be unconstitutional. Waging war is the exclusive domain of the Executive Branch, which the Constitution defines in terms of people.

And how scary would these machines be if civilian law enforcement agencies started using them?