The killer-robot frame was never just a metaphor — it was the organizing structure for a decade of policy argument. Ban campaigns, UN expert group discussions, and the language of "meaningful human control" all assumed that the critical moment was the targeting decision: when a machine selects a human being as a target and initiates lethal force without a person authorizing that specific act. That frame produced real institutional work. It also produced an adversary easy enough to describe that it could be depicted in short films and debated in…