Murderous machines to be the next big thing

In an article about artificial intelligence -- and Google's intention to develop and use this capability -- there is a particularly chilling note.

The authors speak about the ways the United States currently kills enemies by using drones. That's bad enough but it's about to get much, much nastier:

"Right now everything we have is remotely controlled and there's always a human in the loop," Akerson says. "We're heading in the direction to give the decision to kill to an algorithm."

That's right. The plan is to unleash murderous drones that don't need humans to push an actual kill switch. They'll be able to do it all by themselves.

Oh, brave new world that has no people in it. Scary stuff.