Kill Decision

by Daniel Suarez

“About autonomous killing machines. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but if machines based on insect intelligence are widely used in warfare, it could remove evolutionary safeguards that have been in place for millions of years. Among the creatures on earth only certain species of ants engage in unrestrained slaughter.” “What about the Holocaust? Or Hiroshima?” “But that came to an end. People didn’t continue the killing. And they didn’t kill everyone who surrendered. Mammals aren’t predisposed to murdering their own species; they engage in a primordial fight-flight-posturing-or-submission process that naturally inhibits killing. But replacing that with an insect paradigm: That means killing without exception. It could begin a self-destructive pattern that circumvents millions of years of evolution—in particular the safeguard that prevents humans from engaging in unlimited intraspecies slaughter.”