[extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton

[spike]

Samantha Atkins
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton

 

Oh man, carnivorous robots. What a concept. Now our "mind children" can
potentially compete for food, eh? At least that is how the paranoid may see
it.

Wouldn't a nice little fleck of some radioactive isotope be maybe a touch
more preferable than instilling hunting patterns (presumably) and the
ability to digest biological creatures? 

- s

 

Oh no, very much on the contrary.  A machine that powers itself by devouring
bio-creatures

is a verrrry desireable breakthru, for presumably they can be designed to
devour *very specific

kinds* of biota, such as flies, mosquitoes, gnats, ants, roaches, aphids,
locusts and so on,

all manner of pests we would much rather have devoured than not.  Our mind
children would

not compete against us for food, but rather devour our competitors for food,
as well as those

beasts which spread disease or annoy us.  We might even be able to use their
carbon waste

products for some useful purpose (altho it is not immediately clear to me
the value of

robot shit.)

 

If we can get this to work, it would perhaps be a step along the path to a
more important

development: an herbivorous pest-devouring automaton, which would power
itself by 

munching weeds in our yards, gardens and farms.  If we could get them to
differentiate 

Kentucky bluegrass from all other plants, for instance, imagine the fortunes
that could be 

made.  If it could differentiate corn from shell weed, wheat from tares, oh
my, the commercial

value is difficult to estimate.  

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20041231/8ed8ef92/attachment.html>