British Scientists: “Lets build small, hard to track robots that can learn, force them participate in a neverending deathmatch, and see what happens.”
Robots: “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“It’s amazing, we knew they were learning, but this is really surprising” said one scientist as he massaged the stumps of three missing fingers on his right hand (the result of a ‘playful bit of mischief’ earlier this year), “don’t worry, though: there’s no real danger from these little scamps even if they did escape. I mean, they’ve been doing nothing but trying to find better and more efficient ways to destroy each other for over a three and a half months, or ‘the 10511000 seconds of hate’ as they like to call it… and they’ve somehow learned to apply this killing rage to tasks other than those we define, but where’s the harm?”
It seemed he would have continued in this vein for several more minutes, but it was at about this point that all the lights in the facility went out. Someone said “they cut the power again” at which point the first scientist laughed nervously in the cold, cold darkness and said “they cut the power? How could they cut the power? They’re animals.”
After that, it was mostly just screaming.
(via seki)
