alt Hacker NewsAnd the arms industry has been pushing smart mines for decades, so that they can keep selling them despite the really bad long-term consequences (well beyond the end of hostilities) and the Ottawa Treaty ban. In the end, land mines are killing people although the mines are supposed to be sufficiently advanced not to target persons.
From a security perspective, the “return to base” part seems rather problematic. I doubt you'd want to these things to be concentrated in a single place. And I expect that the long-term problems will be rather similar to mines, even if the electronics are non-operational after a while.
"Smart mines" specifically can be designed so that they're literally incapable of exploding once a deployment timer expires, or a fixed design time limit is reached.
It just makes the mines themselves more expensive - and landmines are very much a "cheap and cheerful" product.
For most autonomous weapons, the situation is even more favorable. Very few things can pack the power to sit for decades waiting for a chance to strike. Dumb landmines only get there by the virtue of being powered by the enemy.