Affect Blog

Whilst Cyclone Power Technologies - one of the companies behind the development of an autonomous robot able to power itself using biological matter - is at pains to suggest that the ‘Eatr’ does not in fact feed on dead bodies (see article here), we should still be concerned about such a technology’s potential applications.The Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot, as its is cunningly named, is a wheeled vehicle with a bioreactor capable to using a range of fuels. These include from conventional elements such as petrol as well as less obvious sources such as plants or bark. This diversity has obvious, commercial applications in a non-military context. But whilst the developers assure us the Eatr does not consume bodies - not least because it would be in contravention of the Geneva Convention - there is little to suggest that it couldn’t.

Take a hypothetical situation: the Eatr is deployed to a conflict zone in the near future, probably in a desert or similar. It terms of efficiency, it makes sense to eat bodies rather than plants, given they are far more energy rich. In addition, if it were in fact deployed in an arid region, plant matter is unlikely to be in abundance. The deceased solider suddenly looks far more appealing. There is also the macabre realisation that a flesh-eating robot would have a dire effect on the moral of the enemy, helping to break down resistance and thereby ‘win’ the conflict in question. Finally, given the US Military’s apparent disdain for human life that wasn’t born under the Stars and Stripes, would it be totally unrealistic to think that the de-humanising discourses used to justify our current wars couldn’t be extended to ‘justify’ the desecration of the bodies of ‘enemy combatants’? If they were just ‘Terrorists’ rather than people when they were alive, why should they be shown any more respect when they are dead?

It is clear then that militarily, operationally, and psychologically, it makes logical if sickening sense to eat corpses instead of plant matter exclusively. But what is perhaps most frightening (if somewhat imaginative) is the idea that these machines could essentially power themselves indefinably (ignoring the need for maintenance, of course) as long as there were ‘enemies’ (people) to kill and plant life remaining to be stripped.  The needs of the machines would then be perfectly opposed to those of humanity at large, as both sides needed to achieve mutually exclusive outcomes in order to survive. But of course, I exaggerate; if this were a possibility, we would surely have been warned already, right?

Suggested further watching and reading:

Terminator 1, 2, 3

The Matrix

I, Robot

Most science fiction novels.