Proponents of killer robots argue that fully autonomous weapons wouldn’t get hungry, tired, feel pain, fear or anger, and wouldn’t act in self-defence or make rash decisions in the heat of the moment. But as inanimate objects, such weapons systems would also lack empathy, conscience, emotion and understanding of human rights and human dignity. These tools of human judgment are crucial for making the complex ethical and moral decisions required of soldiers in combat. The development and use of fully autonomous weapons would further dehumanise warfare and killing, and perpetuate patriarchal structures of military violence.