The first, a November 19 report from Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School Human Rights Clinic, calls for an international ban on killer robots. Four days later a Department of Defense Directive titled “Autonomy in Weapons Systems” was published under the signature of Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The two documents may only be connected by the timing of their release, but the directive should nevertheless be read as an effort to quell any public concern about the dangers posed by semiautonomous and autonomous weapons systems—which are capable of functioning with little or no direct human involvement—and to block attempts to restrict the development of robotic weaponry. In the directive, the Department of Defense wants to expand the use of self-directed weapons, and it is explicitly asking us not to worry about autonomous robotic weaponry, saying that the Department of Defense will put in place adequate oversight on its own.