MUNICH: The Munich Security Conference is an annual catalog of horrors. But the most ominous discussion last weekend wasn’t about Islamic State terrorism but a new generation of weapons -- such as killer robots and malignly programmed “smart” appliances that could be deployed in a future conflict.

Behind the main events at the annual discussion of foreign and defense policy here was a topic described in one late-night session as “The Future of Warfare: Race with the Machines.” The premise was that we are at the dawn of a new era of conflict in which all wars will be, to some extent, cyber wars, and new weapons will combine radical advances in hardware, software and even biology.

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