A drone affectionately called 'CUPID' has been equipped with an 80,000 volt taser and has successfully taken out a human, helpfully mapping out the sci-fi predicted future of humanity...
CUPID ---> Robocop ---> Skynet ---> Terminators ---> No more people.
Designed by Chaotic Moon, the Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone (y'see?) was effectively demonstrated on an unfortunate intern at the South by Southwest festival.
To put the shock into perspective, regular police tasers use 50,000 volts so 80,000 is a significant boost.
In honesty, it's slightly ominous the video clip ends before showing said intern actually getting up...
So, what's the point? Well aside from selecting only the toughest and most committed of intern candidates, its creators obviously envisage a law enforcement role for the drone.
Chaotic Moon's William "Whurley" Hurley told the Verge: "We thought a lot about, 'how could this be used?
"Perhaps there's a raid on a house and somebody runs. Why send somebody with a gun chasing him down the alley?
"The drone could just go and detain them and then you could just go and pick them up."
There's a long way to go before this could become a viable reality - there's more to a legally certified law enforcement device than strapping a weapon to a quadcopter.
It does however, give us a glimpse of perhaps where this kind of technology is heading.