Here’s a brilliant little video segment from Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report that I thought would be a nice follow-on to yesterday’s post on Kirobo’s Farewell, the strangely touching goodbye conversation between a Japanese astronaut and his orbital robot companion.

In this bit, Colbert, inspired by a recent US Navy program, riffs on the topic of “teaching robots morality,” with a rather dark twist at the end.

Click here to check it out (you’ll probably have to watch an ad, but it’s worth it).

So it seems that the ethics of man-machine relationships are on the minds of many these days … and maybe Colbert is right, maybe it’s the machines who should worry.