From headless robodogs to drone pilots who can outclass any human, watching the mesmerising military tech on show here is to watch a terrible beauty being born – one that could annihilate us all
As someone who is filled with an unholy terror every time Alexa or Siri speaks and who wishes to run screaming for the hills – where my fully stocked bunker awaits – whenever I see kids playing with toy drones instead of kites in the park, Netflix’s Unknown: Killer Robots is … a challenging watch.
“It’s a cliche but I 100% believe that ‘Freedom is not free’” says Brandon Tseng, former US Navy Seal and co-founder of Shield AI. His company is now joined in the battle for military supremacy via artificial intelligence. The race is on throughout the US and doubtless Russia and China too to develop autonomous drones and other technology that can allow soldiers to avoid such perilous work as clearing buildings of armed personnel, explosive devices and so on, or which can track subjects over inhospitable terrains and vast areas – oh, and kill people when the need arises. The enemy, obviously. Which they will be able to identify reliably, always acting within the rules of engagement. I mean, there may be tricky moments along the way. Paul Scharre, former US army Ranger and author of Army of None, remembers the unspoken agreement among his men not to shoot when insurgents sent an eight-year-old girl out ahead of them to scout for danger. A robot would have seen her as a legal and legitimate target, but I’m sure these kinks will get worked out in time. (Does anyone know how the racist chatbot made headlines last year is getting on, by the way?)
