Before I answer this question, let me give you a little background on where I'm coming from. I'm by no means an expert, but I have some experience with robotics. My first job out of college was working on robots at NASA, and my undergraduate degree project was on robotic navigation. I spent my teenage years participating in FIRST Robotics , programming software bots to fight in virtual tournaments , and working on homemade underwater ROVs. And I've watched plenty of Robot Wars , BattleBots , and Killer Robots Robogames . If all that experience has taught me anything, it's that the robot revolution would end quickly, because the robots would all break down or get stuck against walls. Robots never, ever work right. What people don't appreciate, when they picture Terminator-style automatons striding triumphantly across a mountain of human skulls, is how hard it is to keep your footing on something as unstable as a mountain of human skulls. Most humans probably couldn't manage it, and they've had a lifetime of practice at walking without falling over. Of course, our technology is constantly improving. But we have a long way to go. Instead of the typical futuristic robot apocalypse scenario, let's suppose that our current machines turned against us. We won't assume any technological advances -- just that all our current machines were reprogrammed to blindly attack us using existing technology. Here are a few snapshots of what an actual robot apocalypse might look like: In labs everywhere, experimental