It's all fun and games until we build Skynet...

I'm sorry, we're pro-killer robot? Pro? Because according to this, the United States is joining noted election rigger Russia as well as countries I'm not mad at including Australia, Israel, South Korea, and the United Kingdom in opposing a ban on autonomous military robots capable of using lethal force. So...killer robots.

So this, but presumably with better aim and fewer quips.

At least someone is taking
Terminator seriously...

The annual and coyly named Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons held in Geneva, Switzerland last week brought together representatives from dozens of nations around the world to discuss the soon to be a huge problem of killer robots, and-huh? Yeah, I said soon. I'm not kidding. Yes, I know it sounds like they're taking Terminator way too seriously, but the military is using human-operated and armed drones right now, so autonomous drones aren't really in tin-foil hat country. And the CCV is trying to come up with policies now, while killer robots are still a hypothetical. So what I want to know is why all the pro-killer robot sentiment?

Russia's opposition to the ban I get. They (and by extension, us) are basically run by the mob. And our opposition makes sense on its own because we love the shit out of guns and someone's probably making the case that James Madison was talking about goddamn murder bots when he wrote the second amendment.

"Well regulated militia...keep and bear arms...this is good James, but do you think
we should be a bit more specific? I mean what if someone improves on the old
muzzle loader, or invents some kind of autonomous killer robots some day?"

-Benjamin Franklin, giving notes

"Robot peace in our time!"

-Neville Chamberlain,

speaking too soon

But South Korea? They're kind of famous for robots and you'd think the last thing they'd want is for them to turn on them. And the UK? A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense said:

"The United Kingdom does not posses fully autonomous weapons systems and has no intention of developing them. We believe a preemptive ban is premature as there is still no international agreement on the characteristics of lethal autonomous weapons systems."

-Some Ministry of Defense spokesperson

"Utter nonsense? Rubbish?
Twaddle? Perhaps a load of tosh?

-Some British guy

So couple of things...according to The Independent, last September the Ministry of Defense released a report indicating that they believe that future wars will be fought with robots, so it's a little weird that they wouldn't be looking into it, except they are. Last November a study came out showing that the UK is 100% funding and developing autonomous weapons systems. Also, there's another story, this time from the BBC, about the Ministry of Defense carrying out military exercises using autonomous vehicles last December. What's British for horseshit?

And what does he mean there's no international agreement on the characteristics of lethal autonomous weapons systems? Seems pretty self-explanatory.

"They're not totally autonomous. You
do have to tell them who to go kill."

-Dick Jones, Senior President

of Omni Consumer Products

"Equivocate!"

So I'm neither Woodward nor Bernstein. I just searched for Ministry of Defense and Robots because I wanted the name of the spokesperson mentioned in The Guardian's article so I could try and come up with a funny attribution. Instead I got a bunch of stories about how the people who gave us Daleks love their killer robots. Add to this-huh? What? Yes, I know Daleks contain organic components and are therefore technically cyborgs. I was taking some license.

Huh, exploiting the rules to get the
outcome they want no matter how
shitty seems to be Russia's thing, huh?

Anyway, back to how none of us are going to survive the rise of the machines. The talks in Geneva were stymied by the pro-killer robot countries who, led by Russia, and despite being massively outnumbered by the anti-Skynet nations, were able to use the convention's stupid rules to make sure debate was limited and nothing got settled. But I guess what I don't get is how dumb are we? Like, as a species? I mean, do we need a robot war before we take action here?

And yes, know how I sound, but we waited until after mustard gas, nuclear weapons, and mines to do anything about those, so maybe before we destroy ourselves in some kind of robopocalypse is the time to talk about the robopocalypse?

That's like waiting until after you have zombies to hold a vote
on banning rage-virus research. Like, the genie's out of the bottle.