I saw on the Sky news a couple of
days ago, a discussion regarding whether it should be acceptable or even
allowed, for countries to create robot, killing machines. I do not mean the present type of human
controlled drones; they were discussing the Terminator type robot. The man discussing this wanted an outright
ban on ever trying to create Terminator type, robot, killing machines, and I
have to agree with him. The female Sky
presenter was trying in vain to put forward the argument that there should at
least be a discussion and that since at present we were not close to creating
such a machine, what harm could it do.
She tried to argue that perhaps it would save lives and stop needless
deaths of soldiers. What a load of
bollocks.
“Listen, and understand.
That terminator is out there. It
can't be bargained with. It can't be
reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or
remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will
not stop, ever, until you are dead.” – Kyle Reese
This is what might happen should
one of the big weapons manufactures produce a viable Terminator. Firstly, at present if the power situation
was the same as today, an American company would probably be the first to
produce a viable working Terminator, so the US armed forces would want it
immediately. In fact, I bet they are at
present spending mega bucks trying to solve this problem before anyone else. As with their drones, the US armed forces
would be the main purchasers of the US version of the Terminator. Obviously, America’s main allies would want some
too, so Britain, of course we would need them, and whoever else the Americans
deem worthy. Perhaps countries with a
less than savoury government might end up with some, I can think of a few of
them. The US would use them in the field
against whomever they are pissed off with at the time, and then the whole world
would see the effectiveness of Terminator US.
Immediately, the Chinese,
Russians, and any other major force at the time would strive to create their
versions. The Germans, Japanese, perhaps
even Britain would create a version of the robot, or even parts of a robot, and
so initially, we would see a small arms race involving Terminator robots. Every major power would want to create a
quicker, stronger, more powerful, more intelligent Terminator Robot. They might prove too expensive for one
country so the allies might group together to create one and you can guess the
rest.
Despots, dictators, and military
juntas would use them against their own populations as crowd control. Fewer soldiers may die once these metal
beasts were unleashed on the world, but it would likely decimate civilian populations.
The less scrupulous nations might
become a little cocky, and see an incursion against another country as viable,
since no soldiers would be lost. The Russians
might take back countries like Chechnya, the Chinese might move on the Siamese
peninsula. North Korea attacks South
Korea, war is now like a game of Risk. Initially
it all seems like a success, until someone gets greedy.
If you want to see it from the
perspective of a business executive from a large weapons manufacturer – hey it’s
now big business making Terminators, the more countries that have them the more
profit they make. Small wars become
larger wars there are still few casualties and it might end in a peaceful
settlement. Everyone thinks this is the
way to settle differences in the future, machine against machine.
Unfortunately, nothing was lost
or gained, and the whole point of war is either to gain something or not to
lose something else. It might be land,
resources, power, influence, whatever it is, robots fighting robots is always
likely to end in stalemate, unless one side has more robots than the other. If one side has more, then the losing side is
still going to have to use soldiers to continue the fight. Perhaps robots, with the latest microchips
would beat older models, and that is the deciding factor. Eventually it would all lead to human deaths,
and they would escalate. Deaths to
civilians would intensify, Terminators would only kill, they would have no empathy
towards the human lives lost. If a
country sends in its legions of killing machines, I am sure their programming
would not distinguish between human and killing machine.
Eventually the war would escalate
as more and more of these Terminators are used, attacks on the countries supplying
the machines would be next - the makers of body parts, the microchips, where
would it all end. Legions of metal
killing machines start to parachute from the skies all across the world - no
country is safe. Terminator planes would
destroy cities. The only way to stop the
madness is to turn to nuclear weapons, small yield tactical warheads powerful
enough to take out the cities creating the Terminator machines. Then all hell really breaks loose.
Yeah it’s a doom and gloom
scenario, and perhaps we would see sense long before it got that bad and we
would have to go through some kind of Terminator armistice. However, why make them in the first place; it
can only lead to one possible outcome – death.
