US Department of Defense Experiments With Thinking Drones

In the popular “Terminator” series of movies robots fought for control of the world, as automated flying war machines hunted their human prey with increasing precision.

When the first in the movie series was released in 1984, a cult following made a star out of a then unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger and the term "drone" wasn’t invented yet.  When a subsequent sequel was released in 1991, the concept of robotic fighting machines thinking – and killing – on their own seemed like a far-fetched idea.

DARPA testing thinking drones

Fast forward to 2014 and DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,...