Rise of the Machines The Ministry of Defence wants to compile a list of AI boffins with UK security clearance that can be hired to help build Britain's inevitable robotic military future. The ministry's latest publication on artificial intelligence and the armed forces, titled Human-Machine Teaming sets out its vision for what the Rise of the Machines could look like in practice. While it ruled out weaponised AI, if only because of perceived problems with agreeing "a common definition" for lethal autonomous weapon systems*, the "concept note" did set out the MoD's view of how Britain is falling behind in the race to militarise self-thinking robots. "The impact is a shift in the relative rates of innovation from defence to commercial firms with the best systems already, and remaining, in the civilian sector. Military access to the best technologies will become a challenge, except in national crisis situations," wailed the note's authors, who hail from the MoD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre at Shrivenham, the Wiltshire location where the armed forces' future strategic thinkers are hothoused.