SAN JOSE, CA – The designers of a robot that can sustain itself by eating its surrounding environment now swear it is vegetarian.
The concept of the machine, Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR), was originally released in 2003. It has since receive funding from the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which has only fueled further concern over the robot’s real purpose.
EATR was designed to carry out missions with no need for refueling by reaping its own fuel from the surrounding environment. This led many to speculate that it would essentially be a “corpse eater”, eating its way through the bodies of fallen soldiers.
Harry Schoell, the chief executive of Cyclone Power Technologies, said, “We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission.”
Instead the company has assured that the robot will only feed on plant material.
One of the other inventors, Dr Robert Finkelstein of Robotic Technology Inc. (RTI), said that EATR will have built-in systems that would determine whether material it ingested was animal or vegetable. If it was found to be animal, the machine would immediately stop.
But is ths just a smokescreen until it’s too late? Will the military be using such a monstrosity?
…I want a flesh eating robot…I wonder if anyone would buy me one for christmas…?
I definitely have some flesh they can eat. I need to lose at LEAST 60 lbs and this sounds like a revolutionary diet as well as a a way to get rid of unwanted corpses…get it to have a high fat diet that the rest of us can't afford!
Looks like it would be a great Idea for a lawn mower. Using your grass clippings to power your lawn mower.__
How green of you, ya trendy b-st-rd!! j/k…LOL…really a good idea…!!
Seems to me that it would get plenty of fat by eating corpses but what would stop it from eating live meat instead of just corpses? Why not use it to attack and take down enemy soldiers rather than just the dead? Maybe program it to only eat the meat of Muslims or other "enemies" or Taliban soldiers?
"Danger! Danger! Will Robinson!"
Could this be the 1st terminator?
I second that motion on this being the first terminator.
The subsequent time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I do know it was my choice to read, but I truly thought youd have something attention-grabbing to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you possibly can fix if you happen to werent too busy searching for attention.