The Coming Storm of Autonomous War Robots and the West’s Dangerous Phobias

This was done because firearms undermined the sovereignty of the central government and the prominent role of the samurais in the country's social structure. [...] The naval battle in 3 the Manila Bay with the US Navy in the 1898 war might have had a different outcome, and the history of naval power and the role it played in shaping the global balance of power might have been entirely different. [...] The swift and shocking development of low- cost, mass-produced robotic weapons systems is expected to change the international balance of power in the near future, and the consequences of the new reality may be dramatic. [...] The big question – the answer to which will have great influence on the shaping of the geostrategic reality in the Middle East and worldwide – is who will be the first to “marry” large numbers of low-cost robotic strike systems with artificial intelligence that will permit them to function independent of human control. [...] The Chinese and the Muslims were alternately blamed for the discovery of gunpowder, while some Protestant writers attributed the "devilish" invention to the dark figure of Berthold Swartz, a German Franciscan monk and alchemist.