How close are we REALLY to the Terminator?

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]starting to encroach on Terminator territory.

[00:00:01]>> Right. So, we're talking about robot soldiers. Will there ever be a point where we don't need human soldiers anymore and what that means for humanity? Actually, I think probably the cultural touchstone for this whole topic is probably the Terminator movies. I think we will have this sort of prevailing image of what a robot soldier looks like and will be, but it's probably reductive to just talk about robot soldiers. I think when you think about modern warfare and future warfare, it's also autonomous weapon systems, which are frankly quite terrifying. And even then, using AI to run battlefields almost like a game of chess. I think you've done a pretty good job with that.

[00:00:34]I'm Professor of Strategic Kings College London and I've been thinking about mines in warfare for quarter of a century or so and artificial mines, artificial intelligence in warfare for probably the last 15 years. And during the course of that 15 years, of course, as you've just touched on, it's become a much more mainstream topic to think about as AI has matured and and developed and it's changing like super quickly. So, my my timing's been good. I I came to the subject just as it became super mainstream. One thing I would say though, you mentioned the Terminator and it was really commonplace in this subfield, I guess we'd call it, to be cynical about that. They never really say, "We're not talking about the Terminator, but" and then launch into their discussion of the ways that AI would change warfare. And actually, there's a sense in which we kind of are talking about the Terminator in some of its aspects. I saw recently that humanoid robots had been deployed into the Russia-Ukraine theater of operations. I imagine there's a lot of hype about that, perhaps more than there is substance, but at least in that respect, we're encroaching, starting to encroach on Terminator territory.