The Pentagon is paying close attention to China’s and Russia’s attempts to develop autonomous, killer robots.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said at a national security forum Monday that these robots may be capable of conducting independent operations, Defense One reports.

“We know that China is already investing heavily in robotics and autonomy and the Russian Chief of General Staff [Valery Vasilevich] Gerasimov recently said that the Russian military is preparing to fight on a roboticized battlefield and he said, and I quote, ‘In the near future, it is possible that a complete roboticized unit will be created capable of independently conducting military operations,’” Work said, according to Defense One.

Vyacheslav Khalitov, deputy director general for Russian defense contractor Uralvagonzavod, said in October that the company is moving away from “crewed” machines and building robotic prototypes, which should be ready in roughly 2 years.

Russian Strategic Missile Forces also said in 2014 that armed sentry robots, capable of selecting and destroying human targets entirely on its own, are on the way.

The United States is quietly moving forward on the autonomous war machine front. Last year, Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall sent a memo to the Defense Science Board, asking the group to explore what scientific and engineering problems need to be overcome to answer the questions: “What activities cannot today be performed autonomously? When is human intervention required? What limits the use of autonomy? How might we overcome those limits and expand the use of autonomy in the near term as well as over the next 2 decades?”

Research into artificial intelligence has gained a lot of steam over the past few years. Silicon Valley tech titans, including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, have set aside $1 billion to ensure that AI development advances “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” Unchecked, Musk believes that AI could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons. Stephen Hawking told the BBC last December that AI may “spell the end of the human race.”

For now, development of autonomous weapons is proceeding full speed ahead. In July, 1,000 experts in the artificial intelligence industry signed a letter calling for a ban on autonomous weapons research. This ban does not include cruise missiles or drones, since those require active human involvement.

Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter

Send tips to [email protected].