Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies

[wantoutnow]

Source: foxnews

It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie.

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,532492,00.html?test=latestnews

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I thought this was from the onion. Isnt the military industrial complex great?

[maxsolomon]

1. scoff - that technology is over 100 years old

[villager]

4. "Loveless Industries -- your tax dollars hard at work!"

n/t

[eShirl]

2. What could possibly go wrong?

[midnight]

18. I don't even want to think about the new monster weapon they

are sinking our tax dollars into, but you know their will be kinks to work out and a few generations with the weapon before it is perfected.

[Ian David]

3. I take it the robot uses a Stirling Engine? n/t

[hay rick]

22. If I'm a robot, I definitely want one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BetaStirlingTG4web.jpg

[ZombieHorde]

5. Flesh eating robots is one of the better ideas I have heard in a while.

I want one as a pet.

[Bette Noir]

6. Somebody please tell me that this is a hoax.

[babylonsister]

7. Who knew robots ate?

:crazy:

[Hugabear]

60. Everything "eats" something

The computer that you're using right now "eats" electricity it draws either from your laptop's batteries or an electrical outlet. Your vehicle "eats" gasoline for energy.

Now we're just gonna teach some extremely intelligent machines, able to make decisions (and kill) on their own, that it's okay for them to "eat" humans in order to draw energy from.

Donchya just love progress?

[cosmicone]

8. Next the pentagon will be trying to find a cure for

robot obesity :rofl:

[wantoutnow]

9. Im sure

it will just come in like a vacuuum cleaner after we carpet bomb a few thousand civilians and " clean up" the evidence. I get sick thinking about the hideous people we have had in our government for a long time. Pure evil. Yet the right wing wants to cut medicaid and education and unemployment. Spare no expense though, for human eating robots for our military adventures.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

17. Where the hell do ya think Soylent Green comes from?

The sea? :shrug:

[wantoutnow]

19. soylent green is people

Its people!

[ohio2007]

29. It's "Chinese" food

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE


tell em Hatcher

[myrna minx]

10. This sounds like a diabolical Roomba.

I hope this is a hoax--since it's on the FOX "News" site, it very well could be. If not: :scared:

[Throd]

12. "Doomba"

[myrna minx]

14. The Doomba. LOL

:hi:

[Born_A_Truman]

51. Attack & Snack

[No Elephants]

40. If it's as ineffective as Roomba is reported to be, I feel much better.

[GodlessBiker]

11. Dick Cheney is now inventing stuff?

[rug]

13. Pentagon contracts are not usually so overt.

[readmoreoften]

48. Eh, open air activity is the new concealment. Heck, why should they bother hiding intentions.

War machines that run on corpses instead of oil. They're just cutting out the middle man.

[Hugabear]

61. Besides, who's going to stop them?

Do you want to be the one to try and unplug EATR?

[Nihil]

63. Sad but true ...

> War machines that run on corpses instead of oil.
> They're just cutting out the middle man.

:-(

[provis99]

15. is this a DARPA project? I wouldn't be surprised.

DARPA, the warrior bureaucrats who brought us the "gay bomb".

[Tesha]

69. They also brought you the Internet, but don't let that stop a good rant ;-) (NT)

[Goldom]

16. There are certain headlines, that, when popping up on your RSS feed...

uh... nt.

[elvisbear]

20. How about if they just feed on the bodies of corporate CEO's? n/t

[hlthe2b]

21. well, that's one way to disguise the fatalities of war....

Good think this wasn't available to Georgie W* and his evil sidekick, the Dick.

[Seldona]

23. Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR"?

It's a military robot. What makes anyone think it will stop at 'dead' bodies? It will certainly be responsible for 'preparing' dinner. Talk about shock and awe.

And how tidy! No more mass graves! Why, it's win/win!

:sarcasm:

Only a psychopath could come up with shit like this. Seriously.

[wantoutnow]

24. It makes me sad

and angry, and hopeless. The evil people are so entrenched all you can do is laugh. Or cry.

[Seldona]

36. +1

Let's hope the glare of public opinion will put this monstrosity where it belongs, on the scrap pile of history.

[Lorien]

56. Yep. Now they can "eat" the evidence

"Village? What village? We never saw an inhabited village here"!

[wantoutnow]

25. I just found this on the onion.

I almost cant believe it. Which site is supposed to be satire?

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_axes_pentagon_plan_to_build?utm_source=a-section

[mitchum]

26. Did a very disturbed 9 year old boy come up with this?

[shadowknows69]

27. Oh hell no.

And we'll be surprised when these things become sentient and start using us for fuel.

[No Elephants]

44. They don't need to be sentient to use us for fuel.

[shadowknows69]

45. Indeed but what I worry about is the day they decide we taste good.

Then all bets are off. See any zombie movie and replace the zombies with killer robots.

[ohio2007]

28. it feeds on "pork"

"steam powered"

LOL

[skoalyman]

30. I won't be behind it, when the thing takes a poop,

:puke:

[Vidar]

41. Then it's no good. We can't sell it to Israel.

[No Elephants]

42. Does the Bible say robots can't eat pork?

[and-justice-for-all]

31. Rise of the machines indeed...nt

[mikelgb]

32. ROTFLOL

[timeforpeace]

33. Steam powered. Don't tell these guys about "electricity".

[twitomy]

34. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...

Killings gone "Green"!

[dorkulon]

35. hey, at least it cleans up after itself. nt

[No Elephants]

37. Why only dead bodies? Live humans are "organic material," too. "The

advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced."


What could possibly go wrong?

[readmoreoften]

49. That's my question. Is it so picky that it only eats dead organic material?

I doubt it.

[Hugabear]

59. Add to that the ability to replicate themselves, and self-preservation

We'll soon reach a point where you can't simply pull a plug, turn it off, or deprogram these machines. And I'm sure that these machines may start off as "friendly" servants, fully under our control. But what happens when a machine decides that we are expendable, or that we are an inconvenience or a threat to its existence?

[Crowman1979]

38. This is the dumbest weapon idea I've ever heard of!

They need to FIRE half of the research department and have a general with a Buddy Rich type of anger problem be the head of it.

[Javaman]

39. SOYLENT GREEN IS ROBOT POOP!!!

meh, does that really surprise us?

[Blue_Tires]

43. so our future WILL be like the one in "The Matrix"

:yoiks:

[Swede]

46. See,this is why we can't have nice things.

:shrug:

[Lorien]

57. We can make human eating robots, but developing clean renewable energy

for the masses, now, that's crazy talk!

[Kool Kitty]

62. I'm sorry, Mom.

I didn't mean it. It was an accident. (You were channeling my Mom, weren't you? I could actually hear her voice.) ;)

[Xenotime]

47. Why do we need this?!? We should be working on peace not war.

[TCJ70]

50. I think it was during WWI that they would sometimes run things...

...on energy from dead bodies.

[wroberts189]

52. Pork projects like this and yet we cannot afford single payer. nt

[Lorien]

55. Spending money on killing can NEVER be questioned

but saving lives? What are you, some kind of bleeding heart socialist commie? :sarcasm: (as if it were needed)

[RFKHumphreyObama]

53. This is just bizarre

What a weird invention

[Lorien]

54. War of the worlds

that awful Tom Cruise version had giant robot vehicles that gathered up and "ate" human beings. Obviously it gave someone an idea. :puke:

[Hugabear]

58. Actually it does make sense - and it's scary as hell.

From a purely objective standpoint, it makes sense that you would want a robot that could sustain its energy through a variety of means, including foraging for biomass material. And yes, technically that could include dead animals or humans, which there could be in abundance during a war.

The problem is that at some point, it's possible that these machines could learn to equate humans with an easy energy source, and that by killing humans, they could supply themselves with fuel.

[Soylent Brice]

64. HuffPo has something on this too:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/15/military-eatr-contractor_n_233467.html

[sarcasmo]

65. Military Industrial Complex and the Prison Industrial Complex two of our great Evils.

[Buns_of_Fire]

66. Hint: Don't stand still for more than a second or two.

And practice sleeping with one eye open.

"pEATR, have you seen my dog?"

"No." *burp*

[ReadTomPaine]

67. This is a hoax, people. Check this out:

I don't come here much these days, but I thought I'd clear up this bit of silliness before it got out of hand.

Here's a URL for the site: http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/

Note the names: Finkelstein, Dr. Bilal Ayyub etc. Read the copy they use. This is a joke. Our standards for journalism have fallen so low that even base humor passes for fact without the most simple screening. I debunked this in less than two minutes.

No wonder I left the media business.

[Hugabear]

72. Sorry, you didn't debunk jack shit.

One of your primary reasons is that they have funny sounding names?

You know, if you did just a wee bit of rudimentary internet searching, you'd see that this is for real. Sure, FAUX News may have sensationalized it, but that doesn't change anything.

And why is it so hard to grasp that the military would want fully autonomous machines that can use biomass for energy?

Oh, and this is not a new story. Here's a press release about RTI purchasing a biomass engine system:
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Cyclone-Power-Technologies-Inc-942542.html

And here's another one from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS141421+28-Jan-2009+MW20090128

Both of these are from JANUARY.

[Boddingham]

68. Lots of things can feed on dead bodies.

You, me, bugs, microbes, varmits, scavengers . . . .

What's the big fucking deal?

[Hugabear]

73. How about the fact that these are independent thinking machines programmed to KILL?

Even Stephen Hawking has said that fully autonomous machines could someday pose a serious threat to human existence.

I tend to think that he just might know a little more than you.

[Boddingham]

75. Did I say something that contradicts Stephen Hawking?

Humans, bugs, microbes, varmints, and scavengers are or can be programmed to kill.

We've got lots of machines that kill people. Mostly innocent brown people, but the American people apparently don't give a shit.

I repeat, what's the big fucking deal?

[davepc]

70. Fox News Eats Words On EATR Robot

A few days ago, we brought you news of a robot that would forage its own food--which Fox News was happy to speculate might include "dead bodies." As we noted, that seemed pretty improbable, and a blatant bit of sensationalism on the part of Fox News--after all, desecrating the dead is a war crime, and the robot's manufacturer actually made no mention of the robots eating flesh.

The Web site has now eaten its words and offered a correction for its previous story:

But, contrary to reports, including one that appeared on FOXNews.com, the EATR will not eat animal or human remains.

Which makes Fox News seem like a passive victim of commonly circulated facts--all those "reports," you know. But Fox News actually originated the meme by surmising that dead bodies would be a logical source of food, since they'd be numerous on the battlefield. Sadly, they've completely taken down the offending story rather than correcting it at the bottom (as less fair, less balanced news sources do).

...

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/fox-news-eats-words-eatr-robot

[davepc]

71. Flesh-eating War-bots? Company Says no

The Pentagon has shown it has a great appetite for drones and robots -- everything from missile-firing UAVs to prototype patrol-bots guarding air base perimeters.

But a Maryland company working on a program for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, has the idea of giving the robots their own appetites, letting them feed on biomass as a means of fueling themselves.

But as the image of flesh-eating drones refueling off the battlefield dead has spread in recent days, Cyclone Power Technologies of Florida, the company developing the robot's engine, has issued a statement about the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot's -- aka EATR -- diet.

It is vegetarian, the company said in a press statement released Thursday, in response to stories with headlines such as "Dawn of the corpse-eating robots?" and "Pentagon contracts company for flesh-eating robots."

"We completely understand the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission," Harry Schoell, chief executive officer of Cyclone, said in the statement. "We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous."

...

http://www.military.com/news/article/flesheating-war-bots-company-says-no.html?col=1186032310810

[Renew Deal]

74. lol

Fox "news" is teh stupid. :rofl: