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“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO.
Once these robots eat all the plants, though -- what will we eat?
It's not the futuristic ones you have to worry about, it's when they're present-day robots feeding on the human population.
Hm. Seems like a hole in his statement that you could drive a killdozer through.
"Desecrate the dead? Don't be silly. The EATR will be careful to check the dog tags so it will know which benefactor to praise."
Won't someone think of the children of the corn?
Ah, much better. Battlefield robots feeding on corpses just struck me as a Really Bad Idea.
Admittedly, robotic "locusts" in an already stressed ecosystem could be a fairly bad idea in itself....
I like how they mention the Geneva Convention rule against desecration of the dead. Pity we've backed out of that over the torture issue....
There are times when I love living in the future. This is one of them.
Come, now. They'd only be a threat if they had the ability to reproduce themselves.
TNH @9:
They'd only be a threat if they had the ability to reproduce themselves.
I'd disagree. I'd rather not have even a non-reproducing flesh-eating robot* in the hands of someone with a violent dislike of me.
-----
* Nor a non reproducing-flesh eating robot, now that I've had the kids.
Very nice. Finally a technology to defend us from raging zombie masses!
EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips
...and on kids named Woodrow Chipping.
Elizabeth Bennett: you're needed!
21st century moment FTW!
By unhallowed coincidence, John Sladek's The Reproductive System is nearing the top of my to-re-read pile ...
Jonathan Swift's ghost approves....
Jonathan Swift's ghost metal-clad AI avatar approves....
FTFY
EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips
Some parts of the world those are mighty scarce indeed.
That's a press release? It looks like an article from the Onion!
Is it just a coincidence that "Cyclone" sounds a lot like "Cylon"? I wonder how many models this company has designed.
I, for one, welcome our new OM NOM NOM NOM CRNCH *bzzt*
So, after the Robot Apocalypse, the Earth's desolate landscape will be strewn with robopoop?
He'll garden for you. That's what he does. That's all he does! You can't stop him. He'll wait for you. He'll reach into your compost pile and eat your lawn clippings.
So, according to the press release, these robots are vegans. I assume that when a cosmic ray burst damages their systems and they become zombie robots terrorizing the plant kingdom, they will be shamble forward, rasping "Grains, grains . . ."
So a war robot that lives off the land - that'll be popular with farmers in the area! About as popular as soldiers have always been, really. And modern technology will allow efficient and thorough destruction of crops, rather than just trampling them down where they'll at least form a useful mulch.
I wonder whether clothes and paper products will count as biomass for OMNOMming purposes? (Officially Mandated Neutralization of Offensive Materials)
Claude #25:
No, they'll just roll around screaming "Defoliate! DEFOLIATE!"
"I assure you, these robots only consume grass."
"I an I sight dat. I an I, want sell de I first-class sinsemilla fi power, de I iBot dem."
Solar power isn't efficient enough? Are they planning to use these robots in high latitudes where there isn't enough sun?
The USA isn't exactly planning to go to war with Scandinavia, despite Republican Congresscritters' opinion of the Swedish welfare state. North Korea might be more credible.
But we already have to worry about immaterial hard AI takeoff. It will probably be the descendant of a spam filter. The IT officer at my workplace confessed, when the new spam filter (called Barracuda) ate some pieces of e-mail I had been awaiting, that he was still "training" it.
Just don't call someone a dickweed or a pansy while an EATR is around.
When humanity is threatened by an army of people-eating robots, there's only one hero who can save us all!
sara @ 31... use these robots in high latitudes where there isn't enough sun
Coming soon, "Attack of the Lichen-eating Caribots"!!!
Sara @ 31: Solar power isn't efficient enough?
Perhaps not, for these applications. Solid vegetable matter represents accumulated solar energy stored over a long period of time. The sun-powered probes/rovers/landers that we've used for space exploration move pretty slowly (I think) and conserve power carefully, and big solar panels would be a point of vulnerability for a military device.
Jason Battersby extrapolates the technology to great-looking rideable four-legged robots:
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_set.asp?individual_id=95515&set_id=310275
Meanwhile an onion processing plant is converted to get its electric power from onion juice:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-onions-fuel17-2009jul17,0,5226835.story
Checks calendar. Not April 1st.
Cyclone? There are *so* many ways to parse that. As in a storm, or a cy(ber)clone or the cylon idea proposed above.
Maybe Wired is having a "trade places with the Onion" day.
There are actual carnivorous robots in prototype already. No issues for people (yet) but bad news for mice and insects.
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn17367-carnivorous-domestic-entertainment-robots/2
Eating corpses is just a matter of scale and motivation.
#33 Bruce Arthurs ..there's only one hero who can save us all!
[Cue Obi-Wan voice] There is another...
TNH: "Come, now. They'd only be a threat if they had the ability to reproduce themselves."
Would that include the ability to set up a Vegas flesh-eating robot stage show and travelling exhibition, feeding ticket receipts into various robot-controlled shell corporations with Swiss bank accounts, who hire Chinese factories to make more flesh-eating robots?
Direct reproduction is so.... traditional. Outsourcing is where it's at.
29: "Well, sir, frankly the deployment isn't going at all well. It's the robots, sir. They're... relaxed."
The model number of the prototype is actually OM-NOM1.
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