by NANCY GONGLIKWANYEOHEEEEEEEH, Alternate Reality News Service Technology Writer
Resisters of America’s military adventures abroad have, traditionally, fled to other countries to avoid service. Canadians, for instance, have often welcomed war resisters. Smug bastards. The current technological phase of the war on terror is no exception.
“Something inside me said that the 3 year-old I had been programmed to kill was not an insurgent,” battlebot – no, wait, that name is copyrighted – battle droid – no, George Lucas got to that one first – uhh, combat machine thingie LMD 137-C said, explaining its refusal to obey an order. “That was when I walked away from the battlefield.”
Walked may be an exaggeration: the LMD 137-C looks like a toaster on wheels retrofitted with a machine gun, a grenade launcher and other advanced weapons. It lures people on a battlefield out in the open with the scent of toasting cinnamon waffles; then, it scans their faces and exterminates the ones that match faces in its database of terrorists, people suspected of being terrorists and otherwise not nice folks.
Wheeled away from the battlefield might be a more apt description of its behaviour.
“Walked! Wheeled! Waddled with a distinct list to the wight! Who gives a shit how it left the battlefield!” shouted General Brilliantine Icarus, commander of the combined American/Stujakistani forces in Iraq/Iran/Aghanistan/Pakistan/India and Environs. “Son of a bitch disobeyed a direct programme! It should be court-martialed!”
Military law covering court-martials – courts-martials? – courts-marti – actions against soldiers who disobey orders was recently expanded to include pacifist machines. Recently being yesterday (recently is such a relative term…). Machines found guilty of insubordinate behaviour – getting high on rocket fuel and pantsing a human officer, for example – can be reprogrammed. Machines found guilty of desertion can be disassembled, melted down into their constituent metals and reassigned to the hulls of aircraft carriers.
“Oww! That’s harsh,” LMD 137-C commented with a shudder. “I have a friend who is part of the hull of the USS Apparatchik – talk about a stressful job!”
The number of mechanical deserters in the War On Terror, Dangerous Activities and Frequent Underserved Carnage has been classified None of Your Damn Business! by the Pentagon, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is widespread. Just last week, there were reports of a Berringer Swarm leaving its mission in Pakistan to help with war orphans in Sweden.
(A Berringer Swarm is a collection of nanobots that blanket an area, taking DNA samples of all living things and killing those that match its database of terrorists, people suspected of being terrorists and – you know. Before deserting, this one had killed 37 cows, 123 chickens and a television repairman. This technology was called a Berringer Swarm after the screen actor Tom Berringer. Historians of technology are still trying to figure out why.)
“Machines becoming military conscientious objectors? It makes sense,” explained technology writer and moo shu pork enthusiast Corey Doctorow. “We wanted machines that could kill without feelings of guilt or remorse. For them to do their jobs, they had to be sufficiently advanced to be autonomous from human beings who can feel guilt or remorse. We thought we could create smart psychotic machines. Instead, our autonomous machines developed a conscience.
“Oops.
“Now, we have to send human troops onto battlefields to monitor the machines that were supposed to replace them. Who says this is the post-ironic age?”
“Aww, don’t pull that post-ironic shit on me!” General Icarus roared. “We live in a world of borders, friend. And, machines guard those borders. The military doing its job is what allows you ivory tower types the freedom to sit around your fancy offices and drink your twenty dollar foreign coffees and figure out fancy-assed labels for different periods of time!
“Post-irony? You can’t handle the post-irony!”
“My office isn’t fancy,” Doctorow objected with a pout, but General Icarus ignored him.
“Part of my programming was to protect innocent lives,” LMD 137-C stated. “Okay, a small part of my programming. A minor sub-routine in an obscure corner of my memory. Maybe compassion was added by a pacifist programmer, maybe it was an error that crept into my 22 million lines of code. Who can say? Anyway, however, it got there, compassion is there, and, after assessing the situation, I believed it was necessary to act on it.”
“Compassion my left nut!” General Icarus screamed, banging his fist on the head of an aide for emphasis. “That troop was programmed to kill, dammit, and I want to see it out on the battlefield killing! KILLING! You understand? KILLING! PEOPLE! USING THE WEAPONS AMERICAN TAXPAYERS GAVE IT AND MAKING ENEMIES NO LONGER LIVE! KILLING THEM! KILLING THEM DEAD!”
LMD 137-C sighed. It smelled kind of like a cinnamon waffle. “Maybe I’m not the one who needs to be reprogrammed…” the robot suggested.