Killer robots are here – we must finally decide whether to accept them

We can no longer ignore the growing threat of fully autonomous weapons. Should drones be allowed to kill autonomously? For years, we have had unconfirmed reports and rumours that AI-controlled weapons have killed soldiers on the battlefield without a human in the loop. Now, we know it has happened. As we report here, the use of autonomous killers in a test exercise marks a watershed in warfare .