The New York Times yesterday morning had an article about a new form of drone, the Valkyrie XQ-58A, to be deployed in battle by the United States military. It is large enough to carry missiles, sleek enough to make it hard to detect, and has a range as broad as China is wide. It will be pilotless. But more than this, the XQ-58A will be guided not by someone sitting in a nearby aircraft or in a computer lab, but by its own artificial intelligence. It will be able to identify targets on its own, and know how to approach them with the smallest amount of risk. It looks like it can operate on its own (and if it can’t, surely the next generation Valkyrie will be able to).

There have been, says the Times, numerous instances where human error has led to improper attacks, missing targets or causing unanticipated collateral damages, including killing and injuring civilians. One of the goals of this new missile will be to take human decision making out of the equation and leave the attack determinations up to the non-human brains of the drones.

Of course a battle takes two sides, and perhaps the other sides will also have these non-manned, artificial intelligence controlled weapons. War could be, at least to a large extent, conducted without direct human participation. The only thing you need is someone to power up the Valkyrie – and who says that that someone must be a human being?

You can think of many ways in which these drones could be used, and you may be interested to know that up to 2000 are apparently on order. There have been voices raised warning against leaving this type of decision making to machines governed by artificial intelligence. What if they have been programmed incorrectly, what if they are able to be corrupted (or taken over) or if they can learn to corrupt themselves? These and more questions arise.

As is the case so often, I point to a coincidence. I just finished watching another “Black Mirror” episode, this one from Season 4, titled “Metalhead”. I can’t give you the full story of Metalhead, because much is not explained in the show itself. But basically……the setting is somewhere in the British Isles, after the apocalypse. What sort of apocalypse, we don’t know, but there are fewer people, those cars which are still running look like they have been through the war, and those cars which are not running have been abandoned here are there. Things are so bad and so sad, that the film itself is in black and white.

Three people, two men and a woman, are driving in a battered car to an abandoned warehouse, where they are going to collect something with a mysterious serial number (this number identifies the item for the three), and bring it back to a friend to give to her ailing brother. We learn that this is a dangerous task, and that they need to be in to and out of the warehouse in less than 5 minutes What will happen if they fall behind their five minute schedule, we don’t know. Why the entire task is so dangerous, we never learn.

A box with the target serial number is located, and one of the men climbs a ladder to retrieve it. He pulls the large cardboard box off the shelf, and immediately sees a metal “dog” on the shelf in back of the box. He knows what this is, and he knows it means more than trouble. The “dog” comes to life, makes a rumbling noise. Its two front paws also serve as knife-like weapons, it can sprout shrapnel from its head, and more. It attacks the man – he is dead..

The “dog” can also sense where the others are. It knows that the other man is outside, sitting in a presumed getaway truck. It runs out of the warehouse and down to the truck at superhuman speed, it smashes the window of the truck and jumps through it. It gets its second victim.

It has more trouble with the woman who, while the “dog” is going after the man in the truck, escapes in her car, but the “dog” can run faster than the car can drive, and it catches up with her, although she jumps out of the car, which then careens over a cliff, “dog” inside. The car is totaled, but the “dog” is fine, and the chase is on.

What we learn is that, for the humans, there is apparently no escape. What we don’t learn (in addition to what in hell happened to Mother Earth) is who created the “dogs”, who programmed them, what their purpose is. We know they can think for themselves to a great extent. They know who their prey is; they know how to track them. When injured, they know how to repair themselves. When faced with a dilemma, they can think themselves out of it with a degree of creativity. And one more thing – we learn that the guard “dog” we have been watching is not alone – there are many, many others, and they seem to know how to work together and cooperate.

Okay, back to real life and the military drones, which can also think for themselves and wreak havoc. They are sleeker, for sure, than the “dogs”, but they share some of the same characteristics. And, however sophisticated and able the XQ-58As are, the next generation and the generation after that will be ever more sophisticated and able.

And then comes the apocalypse?

And then?