Hasta la vista, baby －アスタ・ラ・ビスタ、ベイビー－

I was searching a news website today for interesting headlines to write about.  How about this one, from the BBC?: 

“San Francisco to Allow Police Killer Robots” 

Just from the headline, it is not quite clear whether the robots are “police killer robots,” meaning that they are robots being used by the police to kill criminals, or “police killer robots,” meaning that the robots are being used by someone to kill police officers. 

Apparently, it is the former. 

In situations of extreme danger, such as a sniper targeting police officers, or a terrorist group determined to kill, it might be too dangerous to send real humans in to incapacitate the suspects.  The “killer robot” could be sent in to incapacitate them instead.  This could include the use of lethal force. 

Some citizens, quite understandably, are a little nervous about the idea of killer robots.  Hasn’t anyone ever seen the Terminator movies?  Killer robots always end up turning against humanity.

In America, there is a campaign group called “Stop Killer Robots.”  A spokesperson for the group said, the robots could, “make humans more and more distant from the use of force and the consequences of the use of force.” 

This story made me remember the ending to the movie, “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” 

“Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear.  The Terminator would never stop.  It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him – never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him.  It would always be there.  And it would die to protect him.” 

I hope the killer robots are always on our side.

 

Vocabulary:

the former – the first of two options given

to incapacitate someone – to prevent from functioning in a normal way; to disable

lethal force – the use of force which results in death