I, Robot

Consider this:

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have logged hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

These "intelligent" machines have been deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- and already have the built-in ability to identify and lock onto targets without human help.

Increasingly autonomous, these gun-totting robots being developed today for warfare have so far required a human being to push the button or pull the trigger.

But - and it's a BIG but - Military leaders are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war.

Many of us are quite familiar with Isaac Asimov's robots, robots that possessed incredibly advanced "positronic" brains and had the three laws of robotics ingrained into them, laws that would prevent a robot from harming a human or allow a human to come to harm.

Not so the robots that our military is lusting after. These military robots will have no qualms about shooting down humans... that's exactly what they are being built to do.

Asimov's robots were built to serve humankind... our military wants robots that will hunt down and kill humankind, and I have no doubt whatever that our military - and then our police - will eventually have this kind of weapon.

A bit frightening... should someday you be in the way of one of these robotic monsters that will consider you as nothing more than another target to be neutralized.

Of course they will be used on the streets of America. After all, it's the citizens on those very streets that this federal government fears the most.

And what in the hell do they mean by "a risk-free" war?