Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield, England, is worried about murderous automatons. Citing the prevalence of armed drones in Iraq and Afghanistan, Professor Sharkey foresees a frightening future in which these heartless killing machines spread death indiscriminately.

The robot will do the killing itself. This will make decision making faster and allow one person to control many robots. A single soldier could initiate a large scale attack from the air and the ground. It could happen now; the technology's there.

Lest you think the professor is some kind of techno-alarmist who has watched too many Terminator movies-and, frankly, we've given you no reason to think otherwise this far-he also says this:

If we keep on using robot weapons we're going to put civilians at grave risk and it's going to be much easier to start wars. The main inhibitor of wars is body bags coming home.

Which is an absolutely true and correct point. But it's way less sexier than KILLER ROBOTS WILL KILL US ALL, which I think I will use as a headline. I mean, who's going to click through on "Guided Drones Will Desensitize Us To True Costs Of Conflict"? You? I didn't think so.