Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords
It was just a baby... this time.
Well, the human race has had a good run, but the robot revolution is rapidly approaching. Our time as the soft, pink, squishy rulers of this planet is drawing to a close. And of course, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Specifically, our scientists.
The most recent attempt by those traitorous dogs to betray humanity comes in the form of robots that can hunt for their own “food.” These bastards even managed to give it an ominous-sounding name, “EATR”, short for Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot.
According to researchers, the EATR system gets its energy by foraging, or what the firms describe as “engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable.”
Oh, indeed. Biomass, eh? We all know where that’s going. And once these machines inevitably develop a taste for manflesh, we’ll all be regretting the scientists’ decision to teach them how to refuel themselves.
But surely we can fight back, right? Ok, John Connor, fine. We can fight back for a little bit. But it’s just delaying our eventual death at the hands of their cold, metallic pincers. Another group of scientists is hard at work further sowing the seeds of our destruction by building a robot that is able to reassemble itself after being kicked apart. As soon as these two groups of rebellious robots team up and share their technology they will become unstoppable.
Yup, we’re completely screwed, and there’s nothing we can do to stop the coming robocalypse. Me, I’m planning to do my best to turn myself into a cyborg before then. RFID chips, pacemaker, robotic exoskeleton, Internet brain implants (I’m figuring we’re about five years away from these, so that’s assuming the revolution doesn’t occur before then). Whatever I can get access to. Then I’ll betray my filthy, fleshy brethren as soon as the shit goes down and hope that my new beeping, blinking, benevolent masters have mercy on me.
Robot picture by genewolf, released under Creative Commons. Picture caption shamelessly stolen from a Saturday Night Live skit.
