This article was originally featured on MIT Press Reader. This article is adapted from Marcus Carter and Ben Egliston's book "Fantasies of Virtual Reality." The political and cultural theorist Paul Virilio famously wrote that we live in a state of permanent (or "pure") war. By this, he meant that there is an increasing "perversion" of any clear-cut distinction between civilian and military institutions and, by extension, civilian and military life. According to Virilio, after the Second World War, Western economies and societies were permanently reorganized to support military power.

The New York Police Department said Thursday it will stop using the "Digidog," a four-legged robot occasionally deployed for recon in dangerous situations. NYPD officials confirmed in a statement it had terminated its contract and will return the dog to vendor Boston Dynamics. Last December, the agency leased the Digidog, nicknamed Spot, for $94,000. John Miller, the police department's deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told The New York Times that the contract was "a casualty of politics, bad information, and cheap sound bites." Miller bemoaned the role of bad press in the backlash, but in many ways the NYPD's own actions were a blueprint for how not to introduce new tech.

Revolutionary technologies hold much promise for humanity. When taken up for military uses, they can affect international peace and security. The challenge is to build understanding among stakeholders about a technology and develop responsive solutions to mitigate risks. That's where we might be today with military applications of artificial intelligence (AI). Militaries are developing systems that use AI for missions ranging from logistics, to decision support, command and control, or even lethal force.

Have you ever witnessed two people talking past each other? They seem to be discussing the same topic using the same language, but you begin to wonder if they are actually talking about two different things. The public debate about the use of artificial intelligence in the Department of Defense is beginning to feel that way to me. Some technologists have called for DoD AI ethics, but in the next breath they call for an end to programs that have never been demonstrated to be unethical. I recently completed a study examining ethics across all scientific disciplines, and my team identified 10 ethical principles that span disciplines and international borders.

Everybody knows that artificial intelligence is an exceptionally weaponizable technology. So it's no mystery why militaries everywhere are racing to exploit AI to its maximum potential. Autonomous vehicles, for example, will become the most formidable weapon systems humanity has ever developed. AI gives them the ability to see, hear, sense, and adjust real-time strategies far better and faster than most humans. It will almost certainly produce casualty counts in future battles that are staggering and lopsided, especially when one side is almost entirely composed of AI-powered intelligent weapons systems equipped with phalanxes of 3-D camera, millimeter-wave radar, biochemical detectors and other ambient sensors. There's no point in dancing around a huge and growing controversy in the AI industry: the appropriateness of tech vendors such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon Web Services Inc. assisting the U.S. Department of Defense in developing AI technologies not just for offensive purposes, but also for defensive and back-office applications that can sustain this country's war-making bureaucracy.

Following the death by bomb-armed-robot of the suspect in last week's cop killings in Dallas, which apparently involved an improvised setup that the local police department's robot wasn't built to be used for, a public outcry over police access to high tech weaponry has erupted. "The Dallas Police Department's unprecedented use of an explosive-laden robot to kill an armed suspect ushers in a new phase in the militarization of U.S. police departments," reports the Los Angeles Times. The article goes on to point out that there have been similar uses of modified machines originally built as anti-bomb robots, particularly in the military. But Dallas is certainly the most high profile domestic policing use so far, and experts say it could have lasting implications. "If lethally equipped robots can be used in this situation, when else can they be used?"

The Dallas PD's actions appear to mark the first time in US history authorities have used a robot or drone armed with a bomb to kill a civilian. This comes at a time when police forces across the nation are being criticized and scrutinized for using military-style tools. After a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, in Ferguson, Missouri, last year, riots broke out in the area and police responded with weapons, vehicles and gear intended for military use. Images of Ferguson police in military-style body armor holding assault rifles sparked a debate about the militarization of police forces across the United States. Armed robots are the latest tool to transition from the battlefield to civilian life.