particular norms has been essential in making humans less vulnerable than machines to criminal "hackers". In 2009, in an experiment at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne in Switzerland, AI robots were programmed to cooperate with each other and tasked with the goal of searching for a beneficial resource while avoiding a poisonous resource. During the experiment, the robots were grouped into clans, and the successful members' digital genetic code was used for the next generation, a type of algorithm known as a genetic algorithm. After 50 successive generations in the AI, one clan's members discovered how to distinguish the beneficial resource from the poisonous one. The robots then learned to lie to each other in an attempt to hoard the beneficial resource from other robots. In the same experiment, the same AI robots also learned to behave selflessly and signaled danger to other robots, and also died at the cost to save other robots. The implications of this experiment have been challenged by machine ethicists. In the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale experiment, the robots' goals were programmed to be "terminal". In contrast, human motives typically have a quality of requiring never-ending learning. Autonomous weapons systems In 2009, academics and technical experts attended a conference to discuss the potential impact of robots and computers and the impact of the hypothetical possibility that they could become self-sufficient and able to make their own decisions. They discussed the possibility and the extent to which computers and robots might be able to acquire any level of autonomy, and to what degree they could use such abilities to possibly pose any threat or hazard. They noted that some machines have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find power sources on their own and being able to independently choose targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence." They noted that self-awareness as depicted in science-fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls. Some experts and academics have questioned the use of robots for military combat, especially when such robots are given some degree of autonomous functions. The US Navy has funded a report which indicates that as military robots become more complex, there should be greater attention to implications of their ability to make autonomous decisions. The President of the