At a recent defense budget hearing the general in charge of the Pentagon's artificial intelligence center told lawmakers we're nowhere near the "Skynet" of the Terminator movies. But someday we may be and we need to start planning for robot soldiers now.
Retired Colonel Kim Olson says don't underestimate American technology.
"We're an incredible country; we put a man on the Moon for cryin' out loud and brought him back. We're on our way to Mars."
The killer robot arms race is one we don't want to lose.
"Not only should, I think, the military look at it from an offensive position, we should look at it from a defensive stance. Let's just say, Heaven forbid we lose the race, now we're in a defensive crouch and we have to defend against that."
Colonel Olson says she thinks we'll have military uses for a.i. during her children's lifetime. Drones used in agriculture are an early example.
"We've already developed that within the agricultural world where they'll put up UAVs or unmanned vehicles and they'll sweep across fields and they can tell -- they can also probably do it from satellites if they have the intelligence to do that."
Some are worried we'll wind up in a "high-tech Cold War" with Beijing.