I've read the book The Dictators Handbook (watch the CGP Grey video Rules for Rulers[1] for a good summary) and I can imagine a number of really clear and compelling Job Stories for this technology:
* As a ruler facing large-scale protests, I want to clear the crowds of people from the streets without deploying soldiers who might choose to actually side with the protestors.
* As a ruler who is afraid of a coup, I want to reduce the personnel-management costs of maintaining my military so that I can reduce the number of officers needed to maintain the same level of force lethality. This will let me purge my officer corps of possibly-disloyal members and lavish rewards on those who remain.
* As a ruler from an ethnic/religious minority, I want to restrict membership in the military to that minority without reducing its lethality so that I can prevent members of the majority from having trained members who could seize power or resist marginalization.
Technological advances like quinine and the Madsen and Maxim Gun allowed fewer than 1,000 Europeans[2] under Belgian King Leopold to spread the benefits[3] of civilization to The Congo, an area more than 3 times the size of Texas. I am excited to see the world that these new advances will usher in.
Wont the risk for officer rebellion increase with decreased size of the chore?
Even so, it's probably more likely that some murder bot engineers rebell against the ruler than thousands of soldiers and officers who have a harder time organizing than a smaller group.
Obviously, this apply for 'evil' rebells vs 'good' governments too.
I would not like to have a single point of failure murder bot army as garrisons.
As a bonus, developing-world tyrants usually have poor logistical and maintenance capabilities, so PMCs and defense contractors have the option of long-tail contracts for supply, maintenance, and upgrades as well, reducing the risk of regime elements going rogue with the murderbot army. It’s really a win-win for murderous ethnonationalist authoritarianism and unfettered global capitalism!
* As a ruler facing large-scale protests, I want to clear the crowds of people from the streets without deploying soldiers who might choose to actually side with the protestors.
* As a ruler who is afraid of a coup, I want to reduce the personnel-management costs of maintaining my military so that I can reduce the number of officers needed to maintain the same level of force lethality. This will let me purge my officer corps of possibly-disloyal members and lavish rewards on those who remain.
* As a ruler from an ethnic/religious minority, I want to restrict membership in the military to that minority without reducing its lethality so that I can prevent members of the majority from having trained members who could seize power or resist marginalization.
Technological advances like quinine and the Madsen and Maxim Gun allowed fewer than 1,000 Europeans[2] under Belgian King Leopold to spread the benefits[3] of civilization to The Congo, an area more than 3 times the size of Texas. I am excited to see the world that these new advances will usher in.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Publique#Under_the_Congo...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#Mutilation (although yes, also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#War_with_Arab...)