It's been a weird week of extremes of relief and despair (in that order), so I have been mostly bookmarking rather than reading:

• Who Will Command The Robot Armies? — Maciej Cegłowski (via Tregeagle): Letting robots do more of the fighting makes it possible to engage in low-level wars for decades at a time, without creating political pressure for peace. As it becomes harder to inflict casualties on Western armies, their opponents turn to local civilian targets. These are the real victims of terrorism; people who rarely make the news but suffer immensely from the state of permanent warfare.