In my predictions for 2011, I wrote this as my Number #2 prediction:
An armed military ground robot will successfully identify and terminate a top Taliban leader deep inside a cave somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. In response, a U.S. military robot will be hijacked and used against U.S. forces in a deadly attack. Both events will spur high-level discussions–and much hand-wringing–about the ethical uses of robots in warfare but they will also fuel increased expenditures on military robots by other foreign governments.
If you’re wonder how a robot might perform this termination, I invite you to watch this video of a “Nano Hummingbird”:
