The phrase "mission creep" entered the popular discourse in the early to mid-1990s. The trick is to do this without inviting what a senior official called "mission creep" -- the expansion of the role to include, for example, raiding neighborhoods controlled by General Aidid and searching for weapons. Like countless military and sports terms before it, we now understand it in a broader context. It's one of those phrases that perfectly encapsulates a commonly understood experience -- projects whose size, scope and focus shift so gradually you hardly even notice. I bring this up in the context of an op-ed the Electronic Frontier Foundation published last year.

Robot Wars does highlight the destructive potential of robots, and the show is returning to our screens when this is more relevant – and topical – than ever. The recent incident where Dallas police used a bomb disposal robot to blow up the sniper responsible for the deaths of five police officers earlier this month is a case in point. In that incident the robot was remote controlled rather than programmed with the ability to make its own decision (AI) yet still a line was crossed, for Sharkey. "This robot has speakers on it and a camera, and a microphone." says Sharkey. "But the police didn't drive it in and say: 'Look, we're going to blow you to pieces if you don't surrender, now are you going to drop your guns and come out?' So they used the robot with no chance of surrender, and that is a real worry."

In the wake of post-protest shootings that left five police officers dead and seven others wounded, along with two civilians, police traded gunfire last night with a suspect inside a downtown Dallas parking garage. Eventually, law enforcement sent a "bomb robot" (most likely shorthand for a remotely controlled bomb disposal robot) armed with an explosive, to the suspect's location, then detonated the explosive, killing the suspect. "We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was…other options would have exposed our officers to great danger," said Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown. "The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb." Repurposing a robot that was created to prevent death by explosion clearly contrasts with the way these machines are normally used. Bomb disposal robots are routinely used to minimize the potential of harm to officers and civilians when disarming or clearing potential explosives from an area.