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Rats, Robots, And Rescue Follow Up
Dr. Robin Murphy writes "An editorial comparing the proposed roborats with the rescue robots actually used at the WTC response by the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue appeared last month in
IEEE Intelligent Systems Magazine. A slightly longer version is at
Crasar.org. Note that the rescue robots was in Discover Magazine's Top 100 stories of 2002."
Seems to me that the "law enforcement" community
would embrace this new tool as a way to check up on citizens. These machines have huge potential in domestic military and political survelliance applications. I'm sure Mr. Poindexter is just drooling all over himself at the possibilities.
Damn, your system is slow this morning...
Stupid Humans.....
His article is one giant dismissal of the recently invented "roborat" technology, with a conspicuous emphasis on funding guidelines. I'm no expert and I won't pretend to be able to comment with authority on whether "rescue rats" have any merit, but I believe there is a clear conflict of interest when a robot-rescue researcher who lives off robot-rescue grant money dismisses an alternative approach to assisted search and rescue.
All this aside I'd rather send rats, robots, snakes, worms, or whatever into a flaming nuclear reactor before I'd send people. But that's just me.
Kill Trolls Dead. Here's
Um, rats are cheap. Not only are rats cheap, they can easlily be mass produced. Not only can they be easily mass produced, but they have something that AI god of yours doesn't have-- Instinct and Common Sense, which is far more valuble in the situations they're putting the rats. Not only do they have instinct and common sense, they're less likely to break or suffer a software crash.
Sloth? Troll.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Just because animals can't speak up (with language, that is, I'm sure the rats made their displease known in many other universal ways that were ignored) this doesn't mean that we're free to mutilate them as we see fit. I applaud the fact that we're using technology to aid in disaster situations, but I just find it really twisted that we're forcing all these animals to suffer for it. Say what you will about rats being cheap, they're still living, intelligent beings that don't deserve to be fitted with skull caps and have their brains shocked. If you don't see any problem with the rats, how far away are we from doing this with cute, cuddly puppies or kittens?
And imagine what combining THIS technology to others will results in... like the work being done on presthetic eyes. Instead of having a huge battery pack and camera and other electrical equipent strapped to a rodent's back, in the near future, this will all be miniaturized (of course) and the camera can actually BE the rodent's eyes, so all that may need to be external would be a powersource.
A seemingly regular-looking rodent (of any other animal for that matter!) may in-fact be a secret agent!
Ain't technology cool?!
Karma: NaN
Which would be the number of rescue workers who didn't die in shifting rubble etc. checking on indications of possible survivors, plus the number of any survivors rescued who would other wise have died. How many rescue workers died after the robots arrived on the scene? How many would have been in danger looking for survivors if the robots had not been there?
As opposed to baiting and exterminating rats. And, we pen cattle and chickens for food. They have no freedom and are procreated strickly for our enjoyment. We care not how they suffer.
Give me a break! Stop being so self-righteous. Are zookeepers evil? Are petting zoos evil?
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