Countdown to Judgement Day
Melissa Melton
Human Rights Watch released a 50-page report this week aimed at governments titled, “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots.” In it, the human rights organization calls for a ban on any future fully autonomous weaponized killing machines because they lack human qualities such as empathy and are unable to meet the basic principles of international humanitarian law for accountability on human casualties.
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That technology may be less science fiction fantasy and more reality than people realize, with militaries heavily invested in creating such robots for those exact purposes. Just last month Infowars reported that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) released video of an LS3 “Legged Squad Support System” robot which can autonomously track humans over rugged terrain as is currently being field tested with the U.S. Marines.
Now China has revealed a massive surveillance camera network dubbed “Skynet” which it is reportedly using to grid out areas of Tibet to stop self-immolations.
The 18th party Congress officials claim that the Skynet surveillance and management grid enables security teams to mobilize within two minutes to stop Tibetans from attempting suicide. According to The Telegraph, “Skynet is a highly secretive network and it is not known how many people work for it or how far is its reach.”
Reports that China plans to become a world leader in robot production in the coming years have also spread following the International Industrial Fair hosted earlier this month in Shanghai.
Many are familiar with the name “Skynet,” as it was the artificial intelligence system that gained self-awareness and took over the globe, starting a nuclear war and directing cyborgs and other war machine technology to kill off any surviving members of human race in the blockbuster Terminator film series.
In fact, DARPA has been refered to as “the real Skynet” because the agency seeks to obtain similar autonomous supertechnologies as depicted in those movies (for just a smattering of DARPA’s many projects, see here, here, here, here and here).
The theme of machines with artificial intelligence “coming to life,” becoming conscious and wreaking havoc on their human creators is sadly nothing new. The term “cybernetic revolt” has been coined to explain the scenario depicted in countless movies, books, and TV shows, including everything from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Doctor Who to The Matrix film series.
The idea of cybernetic revolt is based on a theory that two intelligent species cannot ever truly peacefully co-exist if one group is much more advanced in power and intelligence. This notion has given rise to the singularitarian movement by those who believe that it is in humanity’s best interests to bring about a “technological singularity” where humans ultimately control the situation by merging with technology.
As Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson discussed in their article “The End of Humanity: Rise of the Robots,” it is the goal of the elite to eventually merge with technology to gain immortality. Well-known author and futurist Ray Kurzweil has long-predicted such a future, one where humankind as we know it will cease to exist in 2045.
Not coincidentally, 2045 is the same year the United Nations Global Future 2045 International Congress (led by Kurzweil) announced this past summer will be “a new era for humanity” where emerging technology will replace mankind and a transhumanist vision of man merging with machine will be fully realized as the organization plans in the video below.
Major nations across the globe are racing the create Skynet-like technologies, smart control grids supposedly necessary for humanity’s safety and security. Perhaps men, even the elite who seem to believe they are untouchable, should be humbled and take heed in playing mad scientist. Perhaps they should stop trying to birth then harness the power of superintelligent, super-powerful machines that could ultimately overtake and enslave, irrevocably transform or end humankind.
Even the elite are mere men after all.
If decades of science fiction penned by some of the most brilliant scientific minds of our time have taught us anything, it’s that developing such compelling technology under the guise of advancing humanity nearly always seems to end in an irrevocably changed human race and/or its total annihilation.
Perhaps Human Rights Watch is right to caution us of the potentially devastating ramifications of such lethal autonomous technology, but woefully, it would seem the warning has come too late.