Will the Obama administration agree to ban ‘killer robots’?

They’re known as “lethal autonomous weapons systems,” or LAWS, although some people prefer the catchier term “killer robots.” Either way, representatives from around the world recently gathered in Geneva to debate an important question: Should they be banned from the battlefield?

What are LAWS? No one can seem to agree on a definition, but basically they are weapons that, once activated by a human operator, can acquire, select and engage targets on their own. Although LAWS elude a consensus definition, that has not stopped human rights nongovernmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch and others from wanting them banned.