Company Denies Its Robots Feed On the Dead 154
Back in January we covered the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, or EATR. The EATR gets its energy by "engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment ..." So many news outlets picked up the story and ran it with titles alluding to the robot "eating flesh" or even "eating corpses" that a company spokesperson put out a press release saying, "This robot is strictly vegetarian." The statement says in part, "RTI's patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes 'human bodies,' the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips — small, plant-based items for which RTI's robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI."
Wording (Score:5, Funny)
Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI
Doesn't say anything about dead "enemy combatants" though, does it?
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Vote for ED-209!
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Frank Miller Quote (Score:2)
The machines will enforce the conventions.
Vote for ED-209!
"ED-209. Not the brightest. But hard working, and Very Sincere!"
--Frank Miller
Sounds like he's a shoo-in for the red states!
Re:Wording (Score:4, Funny)
I can certainly see the appeal here.. Surely our flesh-eating robot overlords would have a vested interest in making sure that we are all healthy and nutritious. Disease and famine would become a thing of the past! Not to mention the forced breeding programs!
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duh guys the guy was alive when I ate him..honest..!
My testament to future generations (Score:2)
Dear future generation,
I admit, it was me. It was all a joke, you know... In hindsight, it might not have been wise to confront the slashdot crowd with the vision of a forced breeding program, but honestly, I didn't realize what I had done until they started to mod me "Insightful".
So here you have it, you now know the truth. I'm sorry you have to live your life as cattle.
Sincerely,
Mr2Cents.
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I am now presented with the difficult problem of inventing a punctuation symbol that is interpreted to mean "spoken in the voice of a flesh-eating robotic overlord, sounding not at all apologetic". And I have to find one that SlashCode doesn't mangle. Let's use "%#", just to be utterly arbitrary.
%#BEND OVER, FOODSTUFF. I NEED TO REFILL MY TURKEY BASTER. Oh, you need another hole for semen extraction. And you yourself aren't good enough. Guards, take this runt off
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Those laws only apply to the Human Species.. not to our new robot overlord species. The creators are assuming they'll always be in control of what the robots choose to eat... they made a movie about that I think? heck we can't even control police dogs and they're "man's best friend". Forget robots being as smart as people.. when they get as smart as dogs we'll start having problems.
correction:
It also doesn't say who exactly is LEFT to ENFORCE the conventions if SOMETHING EATS them.
Re:Wording (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not think that means what you think it means (Score:5, Insightful)
The Geneva conventions apply to uniformed soldiers fighting in declared wars between states. They specifically exclude "irregular" combatants who dress as civilians or are not acting on behalf of a state.
An argument can be made in favor of extending the protections of the Geneva conventions to cover "irregular" forces, but an argument could be made against it as well.
Re:I do not think that means what you think it mea (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I'll start...
The Geneva conventions apply to uniformed soldiers fighting in declared wars between states. They specifically exclude "irregular" combatants who dress as civilians or are not acting on behalf of a state.
Such as, say, people fighting on behalf of fellow citizens, against what they deem to be an oppressive power which attempts to dictate their actions from afar?
So obviously there's no direct parallel for the American Revolution today, but my point is that standards of war change -- and if we continue to believe that only "proper" war combatants should be protected, we're betraying principles which most of us believe to be more important than any government.
Re:I do not think that means what you think it mea (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, but there's idealism, and then there's the actual treaty that many nations agreed to. Agreed to not because of morality, but because eachthought it would server their self interest to do so. That treaty mostly protects uniformed soldiers under government command, for good historical reasons. And the only punishment for not complying with the treaty is that it will no longer protect your side, so extending its protections to those who don't comply with it destroys the very valuable protections it does offer.
Perhaps a new treaty would be better, and perhaps you could get the world powers to sign tht treaty, and perhaps monkeys will fly out of my butt and serve as moderators for the process.
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That's true, of course. No doubt that's wht we give Gitmo prisoners free copies of the Koran and Harry Potter books, and otherwise treat them better than the average American POW has been treated by our enemies (I believe it's the case that more media personalities have had themselves waterboarded "to see how bad it really is" than America has waterboarded enemy combatants). However, you still want to leave a gap between how you treat prisoners of opponents who don't follow the treaty, and those who do, s
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So obviously there's no direct parallel for the American Revolution today, but my point is that standards of war change -- and if we continue to believe that only "proper" war combatants should be protected, we're betraying principles which most of us believe to be more important than any government.
On the other hand, the founding fathers were very clear that they were now a new state. Of course, the goal is to know who to hold accountable for following the rules of the Geneva Convention.
This doesn't mean we should violate our common sense of human decency, but we are not held accountable to the letter of the Geneva Convention because it only works if both parties follow the rules.
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On the other hand, the founding fathers were very clear that they were now a new state.
But you do realise that by modern post-9/11 standards, they'd have been considered terrorists by the Brits, right?
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I'm struggling to come up with a car analogy here, but basically trying to shoe-horn them into a law/treaty that wasn't created with them in mind makes little sense when there are already other laws which would protect them in this country.
As far as what happens outside of the country, I think the ballot box is the best, maybe only, answer to that.
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General principles are great, and I'm in favor of them. However, that is not the same thing as the obligations spelled out in a treaty. It's like saying that the speed limit in Maryland has something to do with driving in England.
And it should be noted both that the Continental army was in fact uniformed, and fought well before the Geneva conventions were written.
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So obviously there's no direct parallel for the American Revolution today, but my point is that standards of war change -- and if we continue to believe that only "proper" war combatants should be protected, we're betraying principles which most of us believe to be more important than any government.
But this principle hasn't changed. In the formulation of the Geneva Conventions they gave much thought to the place of partisans or militias, who might not be uniformed. If they are under the common command of
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The Geneva conventions apply to uniformed soldiers fighting in declared wars between states. They specifically exclude "irregular" combatants who dress as civilians or are not acting on behalf of a state.
Yeah, but all the countries that could fight a declared war are pretty much allied.
I don't foresee the US, UK, Russian, and China duking it out any time soon; do you?
Irregular combatants are the norm in many places, like Iraq.
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The Geneva conventions apply to uniformed soldiers fighting in declared wars between states. They specifically exclude "irregular" combatants who dress as civilians or are not acting on behalf of a state.
Irregular combatants dessing as civilians were, among western nations, usually spies. And enemy spies in your country were treated as criminals and tried according to the laws of your land, which were usually quite severe when it came to spying, but they still had the same rights that any criminal has. A fair trial, for example.
They problem with the Gitmo prisoners is that they were not only denied rights as PoWs, but also rights as criminals or even human beings. Torture is not just forbidden by the Geneva
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The Bush administration seemed to be the only ones interested in what the Geneva Conventions actually say. The distinction of lawful and unlawful enemy combatants is made in article 4, part 1 of the third Geneva Convention, which defines who qualifies for the protections described in the convention. The interpretation of this by the Bush administration was in no way novel. It is no different from the interpretation of the International Red Cross. I honestly can't understand the rationale of those who sug
WOW (Score:2, Informative)
I retract my statement in the parent post that there is ambiguity where a trial of a prisoner of war should take place, insofar as that prisoner of war is a lawful enemy combatant, and protected by the Geneva Convention. I was just reading through it and was shocked to find this (emphasis added):
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Not that I completely disagree with you, but most of the individuals we are dealing with these days are not lawful combatants, and as such are not protected by the Geneva Conventions.
They were captured in a foreign country. I don't see how you can legally capture anyone in a foreign country unless you consider them enemy combatants.
Terrorists will never be anything but unlawful combatants in the eyes of the Geneva Conventions, however.
Then treat them as criminals and give them a fair trial. I'm pretty flexible that way. But treating them as subhuman and not having any rights whatsoever, that's just not an option.
Either they're civilians and deserve a fair trial, or they're combatants and should be treated as PoWs.
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That's kind of a wussy ass war crime. What does it matter what happens to the dead, they're dead. People should be more concerned about the living.
Re:Wording (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhh... that's the whole point. Few are very concerned about whether a robot cuts up a body on a battlefield, or whether a soldier does it on his way past to check his gun hasn't jammed, or because he didn't like the expression on the dead guy's face.
The point is that, if people start creating robots like this, it will have a living, evolving impact on our society, and everyone in it. It's more a concern about humans becoming cannibals-by-proxy, than about robots being uncivilised.
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Go read some philosophy and/or spirituality if you really want an answer to that (or just debate on it). It's WAY out of scope for this discussion, and frankly, it's something I expect civilised people to have already studied somewhat.
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Pretty poor actually. At least learn nihilism and do it right.
nihilism ur doin it rong (Score:2)
Well, I wasn't attempting nihilism. Besides there is simply not enough data in my statement to precisely categorize what I said into belonging to particular philosophy.
I will expand on it if it helps you: I do not care what happens to dead bodies, for they are only containers for consciousness.
(never mind, fuck it, this conversation got boring.)
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Except that you ended your sentence with a full stop which marked your sentence complete...
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No shit ;) You didn't really imagine that starting a conversation with "...don't give a shit..." would lead to an interesting follow-up discussion, did you?
It would have been informative, except I already knew slashdot was full of incorrect pedantics.
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No it's not. Maybe, we should collect our enemy's dead, and hire dr. death to plasticize them for display in a "fallen enemies" museum? (http://images.google.com/images?q=dr.%20death%20body%20art&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi) Besides, who the hell wants to sleep next to the guy that cuts the ears off of the people he kills?
Re:Wording (Score:5, Insightful)
because, desecration of the dead isn't about the dead - it's about psychology and the survivors.
It's against the Geneva Conventions because of it's impact on the living.
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Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI
Doesn't say anything about dead "enemy combatants" though, does it?
Not to mention civilians. But don't worry, you can protect your family. [hulu.com]
Nah (Score:2)
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Apparently they can get away with it. They did in Somalia in 1993 and repeatedly in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 and 2003 onwards.
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I know you're being tongue in cheek here, but seriously, the Geneva Convention gives rules of civilized warfare. If you abide by the rules, you recieve the protections of those rules.
"Enemy combatants" are what happens when one side in a conflict (Guerilla fighters usually) - decide they're going to ignore the rules of war. By deciding this, they forfeit any protections under the Geneva Convention.
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Yes it does:
"Art 18. After each engagement, Parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the shipwrecked, wounded and sick, to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care, and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled."
what if it's desperate? (Score:2, Funny)
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this robot wouldn't be the first one to succumb to man-eating under extreme circumstances. the only way to be sure is to starve it, and lock it in a room with McCain.
Is McCain starved too? This could easily turn into the first test case for Robot Rights.
This is too bad (Score:3, Insightful)
> Company Denies Its Robots Feed On the Dead
Too bad, there could be use for such a robot in an epidemic scenario or on a battlefield where the many corpses laying around could cause a health hazard to the survivors ;-))))
Re:This is too bad (Score:5, Funny)
Two factors they don't mention (Score:2)
Conclusion: Robots will not feed on the dead. They will much prefer the Living!
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It's higher in protein content. Not the same thing.
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I'm impressed they admit the robot is vegetarian. Isn't that unamerican or something? I'd expect public outrage if it didn't eat hamburgers and deep fried chicken.
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I like the idea. Also... maybe the robot could stop in front of the body, play a dirge to give it a proper funeral, and then start dissecrting it into bits small enough to fit into its energ... portable cremation unit!
No disrepect of the dead at all, each and every one gets an honorable robotic funeral, and a proper cremation.
course, I doubt it would actually be a great power source, the freshly dead still have a lot of water in them and, I would think, would need to be dessicated well. Plant matter has the
Besides... (Score:2)
...the flesh eating module is a premium upgrade. Only Cyberdyne Systems is experimenting with that at the present.
Article 15... (Score:2, Funny)
Typo (Score:2)
I think there's a little typo. When they wrote Cyclone they actually meant Cylon.
soooo what you are saying... (Score:5, Funny)
Only on slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
would that be modded "interesting".
Too bad. That ship has sailed... (Score:2)
I for one welcome our flesh eatin robot overlords. (Score:2)
Never thought I'd see a post where that lame meme was apropo...
10 Modern Plagues? (Score:2)
Clarification (Score:5, Insightful)
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In much the same sense that a cow could, in principle, eat you. It's just not terribly likely to happen outside of some contrived wood-chipper accident.
Re:Clarification (Score:5, Funny)
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Convenient that this thing carries a wood chipper with it, then.
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The Man-Eating Cow [internationalhero.co.uk] laughs at your principles!
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What is exactly your point?
Are you against a technology because it COULD (your emphasis) be used for evil?
What exactly do you propose, then? Should research on mobile biomass-based energy converters be banned, existing knowledge be censored, be denied federal funds, or what?
Whatever your proposal is, how would it apply to other technologies that can be used for enormous evil? Nuclear energy? High energy physics? Rocket propulsion? Genetic engineering? Nanotechnology?
All of the previous technologies could be
"Company Denies Its Robots Feed On The Dead" (Score:2)
-- Insert Microsoft Employees Joke Here --
What a waist of time... (Score:5, Funny)
I spent all my time working on my emergency Zombie plan but now what i need is an Emergency robot plan.
Re:What a waist of time... (Score:4, Funny)
I made a belt buckle out of a wristwatch so I could waist time.
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Re:What a waist of time... (Score:5, Funny)
I believe the creators of this robot have perfected their emergency zombie plan...
Second Variety (Score:2)
Wait til they come out with the second variety of these and they start replicating themselves.
Food preference = Fatties over Skinnies (Score:2, Funny)
Fat generates more heat, which means more energy. The time to lose weight is now!
Desecrating the dead... (Score:4, Insightful)
Desecrating the dead may be a crime, but aren't humans the only ones who can be help responsible for war crimes? If I carpet bomb an enemy military installation, can I be held responsible for a war crime if that installation had any dead bodies that get vaporized? Similarly, if I set loose this robot in a war one and program it to eat the dead (maybe only dead enemies), would I be held responsible for the actions of the robot? As someone above asked, who enforces this anyway? Can't they just make 'killing people' and 'destroying stuff' war crimes?
Cheers!
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Ooooor should that be "digesting the dead"?
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Would I be held responsible for the actions of the robot?
Yes. Individuals have been held accountable for war crimes committed under their orders, e.g. Goring, Kaltenbrunner, Keitel. The last is particularly informative since he was a field marshal executed primarily for having ordered the execution of captured soldiers, rather than for participation in the Holocaust. You might be able to get away with writing the program for such a robot, but using one in war, or ordering one to be used in war, would be a crime.
As someone above asked, who enforces this anyway? Can't they just make 'killing people' and 'destroying stuff' war crimes?
They are enforced by nation which killed people mos
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Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure we can change that.
Lame (Score:2)
This thing SHOULD eat corpses. You know how much land is wasted in cemeteries and such? And how much cash in embalming and other funereal preparations? This could have saved thousands of acres and millions of dollars. Oh well, there's still a chance Japan will come through for it.
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Actually, it is a old practice to allow people to be buried, and then after a suitable time, the bones are dug up and put in a bone house or something like that. It is a relatively recent thing for people to be preserved and stuck in airtight caskets. Chances are that the practices will change again if land ever became an issue. Not even most religions require any thing like permanent burial in plots forever and ever, so it's pretty much a practice for the benefit of the living, as opposed to the dead.
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Part of it is the Christian belief regarding the Rapture. All those buried are supposed to rise up and the sea give up her dead. I guess the people whose bodies have rotted away (or worse - whose bodies were burned or otherwise destroyed after, or as a cause of death) are just SOL, but the belief still stands in the issue.
When I HAVE asked for an answer on the destroyed body issue most have responded that in their minds if you body was unusable then you'd get a new one but that we still should try our bes
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Part of it is the Christian belief regarding the Rapture. All those buried are supposed to rise up and the sea give up her dead. I guess the people whose bodies have rotted away (or worse - whose bodies were burned or otherwise destroyed after, or as a cause of death) are just SOL, but the belief still stands in the issue.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Christianity doesn't have any specific prohibition on cremation (though some denominations might), but most Catholic & protestant denominations allow it. Cremation is forbidden under Islam. Please take a little time to learn these things before you just rattle something off, hoping to get religion bashing mod points.
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I don't think you know what you're talking about. Christianity doesn't have any specific prohibition on cremation (though some denominations might), but most Catholic & protestant denominations allow it. Cremation is forbidden under Islam. Please take a little time to learn these things before you just rattle something off, hoping to get religion bashing mod points.
Buddy I spent the first 18 years of my life attending a very strict Southern Baptist congregation. I know very well that they were EXTREMELY against cremation (amongst other things that some more mainstream Christians allowed - it was preached in my church that it was a sin to read from any Biblical translation other than the KJV). Nice trying though.
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Buddy I spent the first 18 years of my life attending a very strict Southern Baptist congregation
You'll notice in my post I said some denominations might. Southern Baptist != all of Christianity, there isn't any specific prohibition in the Old or New Testament concerning cremation.
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You're right about funeral expenses being the will of the market, though how anyone was ever convinced your loved ones will hate you if you're not planted in a $10,000 box baffles me.
As for the cemeteries not being on desirable land, I'd have to see surveyor's reports to say for sure, since there's some massive ones in my city right next to major roads. I can't imagine that someone wouldn't want to throw a couple businesses up next to a major thoroughfare.
Perhaps not dead, but... (Score:3, Funny)
[My apologies to Monty Python.]
Grass clippings? (Score:5, Funny)
You damn robots! Stay off my lawn!
I relieved... (Score:3, Funny)
Roomba (Score:2)
Crap! You mean I'm going to have to clean the dead rats out of my Roomba by myself for the foreseeable future?
When can our household robots get omnivorous digesters without someone fretting over it being a war crime?
Looks like... (Score:2)
...PETA got to them.
People Eating Tasty Armymen? (Score:2)
I always eat my greens :P
Well what's the bloody point then? (Score:5, Funny)
If it can't eat them after it kills them then why bother? It'll just leave a messy battlefield behind it, won't it?
Yellow Journalism (Score:2)
Technically, couldn't you shove a corpse in with the fuel of a steam engine and burn it? Does that make old-timey trains monstrous death-machines?
Hell, for that matter, what are "fossil fuels" but the corpses of plants and animals, anyway?
This thing would be scary if it actively hunted corpses not because of its ability to digest them, but rather its intent and design to do so. That you might could shove a body part into a robot out collecting twigs and grass clippings isn't really the designers' fault.
Sure, but for the carrots.... (Score:2)
It IS the apocalypse.
Soooooo...... (Score:2)
Hurray! (Score:2)
Never did I imagine that we would instead focus on robots that do not, but theoretically could, eat people as fuel.
Zombie transformers (Score:2)
Don't eat anything bigger than your mouth (Score:2)
Although I suppose that could still leave unpleasant battlefield moments open.
It would surprise me if modifications don't include something like a pitcher plant to trap insects. Lot of calories in meat.
One heck of a headline (Score:2)