To bring clearer into focus the backdrop of killer robots and the threat they pose, I talked to Peter Asaro, co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. The author of the UN report, Christof Heyns, drew heavily on Asaro’s research and his organization’s agenda in crafting his conclusions. In creating machines that are better than humans, Asaro says, we’re enabling a new kind of danger that we aren’t prepared to handle.

Read more: Greg Thomas on Motherboard