Military EATR: Contractor Working On Horrifying Corpse-Eating Robots [UPDATE]

UPDATE: Good news, via FastCompany. Fox, who was the source of this terrifying story, now says, "contrary to reports, including one that appeared on FOXNews.com, the EATR will not eat animal or human remains." FastCompany notes that this "makes Fox News seem like a passive victim of commonly circulated facts." But...

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).

Cyclone Engine, who manufactures the EATR power source, issues a press release that insisted the device would be herbivorous: "EATR runs of fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips ... 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 Robot Technology."

But at some point, don't all robots eventually turn on their masters and start devouring human flesh? Guess we'll find out!

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It's not everyday that a person gets to blog about how military contractors are developing terrifying, ironically named robots, which will roam around, feasting on dead flesh until the day comes that they will rise up and kill us all, but guess what? Today is one of those days:

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.

Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot -- that's right, "EATR" -- "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable," reads the company's Web site.

That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material -- animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

You know, my editors frown on me for swearing, for good reason, but in this case: SERIOUSLY, PENTAGON, WHAT THE FUCK?!?

I am having a really hard time trying to figure out what the military purpose of a robot that eats dead bodies is. Maybe the idea is these robots will make it difficult for independent observers to quantify casualties? Maybe President Sarah Palin will nominate one to the Supreme Court? The article states that EATR is a "platform" that things could be "built upon" -- like an "ambulance" or a "mobile gunship." But it seems to me that the ambulances and gunships we have now are perfectly okay, and, at any rate, DON'T MAKE MY SOUL HURT.

Speaking of:

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.

So then: some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. But it looks like it's going to end in a hail of white-hot terror at the hands of marauding, corpse-eating Roombas.

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Comments

[csmcmillion]

Dear Pentagon:

Please test your prototype robot by feeding it Sarah Palin.

Thank you.

[cobraxus]

I was thinking more along the lines of feeding it all the people who sold us on the war in Iraq.

[Acleacius]

How is this even legal, on an ethical level, nationally or internationally? How many people could eat, build schools and pay for health care?

[Waltfl]

ehti... what?

[quillsinister]

I think he meant to say, "How many people could eat, build schools and pay for health care [for what we've spent developing this mechanical abomination]?

:-)

[Hunter]

*BEEP* The Holocaust never happened *BURP* Tiananmen Square is propaganda *POOT*

[ForVivi]

OK. Let's test it using the dead bodies of your loved ones.

[artgurrl]

It's very clear to me that our Pentagon and the military contractors that make money off government Pentagon contracts are run by a bunch of sociopaths hellbent on destroying life on this planet anyway their sick minds can imagine.

[Ike Hall]

Pretty much everyone who seeks higher office or high-paying government jobs falls in this category. Not to mention banksters.

[EconPadawan]

Great!, I just convinced my kids there are no flesh-eating robots in their closet. Now what am I going to tell them?

*disclaimer: I have no kids, the story sounds better in the first person.*

[RealityReallyBites]

Just what the world needs, more toys for the insane war criminals to ply their trade of death, destruction and misery all around the world. This toy from hell gives them exactly what they want, they can hide all the evidence of their wanton bloodbath of innocents.

We can thank the repugnantcans for the 10,000 new ways to kill, maim and torture that these cretinous sub humans come up with daily.

repugnantcans are the neanderthal of modern times. The world can't wait for them to go extinct.

[in4success]

guess they won't need these: http://shadowgovernment.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/halliburton-confirms-concentration-camps-already-constructed/

[in4success]

or these: http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/10-06-05/discussion.cgi.21.html

[Moshe]

Even if there is a purpose, the ends do not justify the means.

This is a core problem with our "post 9/11" government and culture. We have accepted the Bush/Cheney promoted premise that anything goes to keep us safe, and then it doesn't even matter that it has little or nothing to do with actually keeping us safe.

The Geneva Convention, which the U.S. has signed and ratified, prohibits desecretion of a corpse on the battlefield.

We ignore our own laws on kidnapping ("rendition"), torture ("enhanced interogation"), due process (indefinate detention), and now we are paying for the delopment of a robot that will desecrate battlefield corpses.

So what exactly remains of the Rule of Law, ethics, morality, or even core human decency?

[From the Raft]

There's always something standing in the way of progress. The EATR is the first Republican concept to come to light in the past 8 years to offer a solution to both energy independence and illegal alien problems. Its like having the governors of both Alaska and Texas cloned into one person and named EATM.

[metalboi]

Sarrick Peralin? Don't even joke about that! :-P

[BailoutBenny]

The Geneva Convention apparently doesn't apply to terrorists, thus the recent legal loopholing by declaring everyone a terrorist. That is how they justify their ability to kidnap, torture, and detain people already and will probably be the way they jusitfy corpse desecration. I see a grim future where all wars will be "unofficial", although popularly called wars, just so treaties like the Geneva convention do not apply.

I think a country wide secession would be a good thing at this point in time.

[TigersEye]

WTF is right.

[living lightning]

This is sick! Sounds like something from a bad sci-fi movie. But how convenient it is...you could kill people with it, then use their bodies as fuel to kill more people and ultimately keep the amount of people killed a secret. Yes, this is definitely the kind of technology needed to better humankind...

[Mike Barden]

try usin' {#

[Jason Hollis]

I for one welcome our new corpse eating robot masters.

[cdnnewsjunky]

lol. Shades of Orwell.

[mendelcrosses]

Ever heard of the slogan "No Body No Crime"

The Pentagon is reseaching on how they could be cleaning up after their bombs and masacres then claimthere were no bodies so,no deads.

[Openyoureyes312]

I'm wondering why they can't (read:won't) make a car that can do this, minus the eating human corpses part of course.