A ‘robot’ is a machine that performs tasks by itself. They don’t all have inbuilt guns and knives, some just hoover the floor. But the essence of a robot is that its somehow interactive with the world in which it lives. And in the case of Terminator robots, in the time in which they happen to find themselves.

This Amazon Echo Dot is a robot. I’ve decided. You just call out to it and it plays music. Or a radio station. Answers questions. Gives information. Cooks dinner. (That’s a lie.) I know my ipad has ‘Siri’ but I never use it. Phones respond to voice commands too. But ‘Alexa’ (as the Echo Dot is ‘called’) is brilliant. Ok, it doesn’t move much… well, only when I knock it on the floor really, but its part of the way forward. Lots of people are designing robots which move and do stuff, this technology is the interactive bit that is quite awesome and an essential part of the inevitable evolution. I called out ‘Alexa! CLEAN THE FUCKING CAR!!’ but she just asked what I wanted to do. Bitch. Maybe ‘she’ will only clean Mel’s car as it was her birthday present.

But the truly amazing bit is that this ‘female’ device responds instantly and obediently when you say ‘Alexa; STOP’.

I wonder how she’d respond to questions about whether Alexander Blackman should have been charged with murder for shooting dead a wounded Taliban bastard in Afghanistan in 2011. She’d probably blow up with the dilemma. Because its so not simple. Its complicated.

The Taliban guy was injured by an attack helicopter and lay wounded, near death. The Marines went to check him and decided that to call in medical help, for an enemy soldier who’d spent the last days trying to kill them, would put at great risk yet more English soldiers and medics. The Geneva Convention lays down rules and regulations for how and when you can kill the enemy. And that Convention is laid down by crusty old politicians sitting in a plush office in neutral Switzerland whilst sipping their skinny lattes and imposing their comfortable, detached morality on guys who are tip-toeing through the literal minefield whilst being shot at by snipers.

I have nothing but sympathy for Alex Blackman. He was fucked up by military problems sustained over weeks of living on the edge. And he made a ‘battlefield decision’ which sent him to prison.

There are rules to war. Sadly they’re only observed by one side, but that in a way is what its all about. The moral high ground. We MUST be better than ‘them’. But if ever there were mitigating circumstances, it was in the Afghan war. Hope he’s out soon following the Appeal Court decision yesterday.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx