NON-VEGAN BATTLEFIELD ROBOTS

[spectre]

http://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/non-vegan-battlefield-robots/

SEARCH DARPA
http://dtsn.darpa.mil/pmdb/

COMPANY DENIES ITS ROBOTS FEED ON THE DEAD
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/07/military-researchers-develop-corpse-eating-robots/

"From the file marked “Evidently, many scientists have never seen even
one scary sci-fi movie”: The Defense Department is funding research
into battlefield robots that power themselves by eating human corpses.
What could possibly go wrong? Since they apparently don’t own TVs or
DVD players, researchers at Robotic Technology say the robots will
collect organic matter, which “could” include human corpses, to use
for fuel. But if you picked up anything on flesh-eating robots over
the years you know they’ll ignore that tasty soybean field and make a
chow line right to the nearest dead body. And, if the machines can’t
find enough dead people to eat, they can always make new ones.
Researchers seem to get a kick out of ensuring the demise of the human
species, so the project is called the Energetically Autonomous
Tactical Robot, or EATR. Wired.com readers looking to save time and
trouble are invited to begin marinating themselves in a mix of 10W30
and Heinz 57 Sauce immediately."

PRESS RELEASE DENIAL
[Please click here for an Important Message Concerning EATR]
http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/images/upload/file/Cyclone%20Power%20Press%20Release%20EATR%20Rumors%20Final%2016%20July%2009.pdf
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/company-denies-its-robots-feed-on-the-dead/
BY Noah Shachtman / July 17, 2009

"I never imagined I’d print a press release in full. Then, an hour
ago, Howard Lovy e-mailed me the most incredible press release of all
time…"

Pompano Beach, Fla.– "In response to rumors circulating the internet
on sites such as FoxNews.com, FastCompany.com and CNET News about a
“flesh eating” robot project, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. (Pink
Sheets:CYPW) and Robotic Technology Inc. (RTI) would like to set the
record straight: This robot is strictly vegetarian.

On July 7, Cyclone announced that it had completed the first stage of
development for a beta biomass engine system used to power RTI’s
Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR™), a Phase II SBIR
project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), Defense Sciences Office. RTI’s EATR is an autonomous robotic
platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without
the need for manual or conventional re-fueling.

RTI’s patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and
extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-
reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be
assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs
on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small,
plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to
forage. 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 RTI.

"We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots
feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated
Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. “We are focused on demonstrating that
our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable
plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-
friendly energy solution are enormous.”

Corporate Profiles
Cyclone Power Technologies is the developer of the award-winning
Cyclone Engine – an eco-friendly external combustion engine with the
power and versatility to run everything from portable electric
generators and garden equipment to cars, trucks and locomotives.
Invented by company founder and CEO Harry Schoell, the patented
Cyclone Engine is a modern day steam engine, ingeniously designed to
achieve high thermal efficiencies through a compact heat-regenerative
process, and to run on virtually any fuel - including bio-diesels,
syngas or solar - while emitting fewer greenhouse gases and irritating
pollutants into the air. Currently in its late stages of development,
the Cyclone Engine was recognized by Popular Science Magazine as the
Invention of the Year for 2008, and was presented with the Society of
Automotive Engineers’ AEI Tech Award in 2006 and 2008. Additionally,
Cyclone was recently named Environmental Business of the Year by the
Broward County Environmental Protection Department. For more
information, visit www.cyclonepower.com.

Robotic Technology Incorporated (RTI), a Maryland, U.S.A. corporation
chartered in 1985, provides systems and services in the fields of
intelligent systems, robotic vehicles (including unmanned ground, air,
and sea vehicles), robotics and automation, weapons systems,
intelligent control systems, intelligent transportation systems,
intelligent manufacturing, and other advanced technology for
government, industry, and not-for-profit clients. Please visit
www.robotictechnologyinc.com for more information.

Safe Harbor Statement
Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking
information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of
1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are
subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements,
other than statements of fact, included in this release, including,
without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and
objectives of the company, are forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such
statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future
events could differ materially from those anticipated in such
statements. The company cautions that these forward-looking statements
are further qualified by other factors. The company undertakes no
obligation to publicly update or revise any statements in this
release, whether as a result of new information, future events or
otherwise."

ARTICLE 15, GENEVA CONVENTION
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/geneva1.html#Article%2015
"Article 15. At all times, and particularly after an engagement,
Parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible
measures to search for and collect the wounded and sick, to protect
them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care,
and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled. Whenever
circumstances permit, an armistice or a suspension of fire shall be
arranged, or local arrangements made, to permit the removal, exchange
and transport of the wounded left on the battlefield. Likewise, local
arrangements may be concluded between Parties to the conflict for the
removal or exchange of wounded and sick from a besieged or encircled
area, and for the passage of medical and religious personnel and
equipment on their way to that area."

DARPA (cont.)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/02/darpa_self_industry_day/
http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?Action=29&Page=29

CYCLONE ALL-FUEL MOTORS
http://www.cyclonepower.com/
http://www.cyclonepower.com/technical_information.html
http://www.cyclonepower.com/whe.html
http://www.cyclonepower.com/better.html
"A traditional gas or diesel powered internal combustion engine
ignites fuel under high pressure inside its cylinders – a explosive
process that requires precise fuel to air ratios. The Cyclone Engine
is dramatically different. It burns its fuel in an external combustion
chamber. Heat from this process is used to turn water into steam,
which is what powers the engine. Because of the way we burn fuel – in
an external combustion chamber under atmospheric pressure -- we have
incredible flexibility as to the fuel we use. In combustion tests we
have used fuels derived from orange peels, palm oil, cottonseed oil,
algae, used motor oil and fryer grease, as well as traditional fossil
fuels … none of which required any modification to our engine. We have
also burned propane, butane, natural gas and even powdered coal. What
does this mean? Well, imagine having the choice to run your car on
gasoline one day and 100% pure biodiesel the next, or even a mixture
of the two. The Cyclone Engine can provide consumers with the power to
use fuels that are less expensive, more plentiful and locally
produced. This is better for our economy, national security and global
environment. Additionally, we have built engines that don’t burn any
fuel at all. Instead, we can recycle the heat from other sources such
as ovens, furnaces, exhaust pipes or even solar collectors – thermal
energy that would otherwise be wasted into the environment. Our Waste
Heat Engine harvests this external heat to produce mechanical energy
which, in turn, can run an electric generator."

EATR
http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/index.php/EATR
http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/images/upload/file/Presentation%20EATR%20Brief%20Overview%206%20April%2009.pdf

'EQUIVALENT TO EATING'
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/141329/flesh-eating_robots_developed_for_pentagon/
Flesh-Eating Robots Developed for Pentagon
BY Tana Ganeva / July 15, 2009

Thanks to the Pentagon and a Maryland Robotics Company, the robots who
inherit the Earth when humanity is wiped out will be able to survive
by feasting on the flesh of human corpses! The Energetically
Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR -- yes, EATR) is described thusly on
the company's website: "The purpose of the Energetically Autonomous
Tactical Robot (EATR)™ (patent pending) project is to develop and
demonstrate an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range,
long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-
fueling, which would otherwise preclude the ability of the robot to
perform such missions. The system obtains its energy by foraging –
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 (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."

Doesn't sound that sinister, since dead bodies are artfully skirted
around in the description. Then again, a presentation on the
technology is accompanied by the picture above, which appears to show
a giant robot calmly shooting the last rebel human aircraft out of the
sky with its eyes ... As Peter Singer, a defense analyst at the
Brookings Institute and author of Wired for War, said after seeing a
presentation about the technology: "I really hope Skynet doesn’t learn
about that kind of system."

IF MACHINES COULD BALK / Taking Man Out Of The Loop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1pr683SYFk
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-04/robots-war
http://wiredforwar.pwsinger.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61&Itemid=54
http://wiredforwar.pwsinger.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=71
http://bigthink.com/ideas/pw-singer-on-the-future-of-robotics-in-warfare

CONTACT
P.W. Singer
http://www.pwsinger.com/
http://wiredforwar.pwsinger.com/
http://www.pwsinger.com/articles.html
http://www.brookings.edu/experts/singerp.aspx
email : author [at] pwsinger [dot] com

CARNIVOROUS DOMESTIC ENTERTAINMENT ROBOTS / Speculative Design
http://www.auger-loizeau.com/
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn17367-carnivorous-domestic-entertainment-robots/
http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid1873822884?bctid=27945753001
http://www.materialbeliefs.com/prototypes/cder.php
designed by James Auger, Jimmy Loizeau and Aleksandar Zivanovic
1. Lampshade robot : Flies and moths are naturally attracted to light.
This lamp shade has holes based on the form of the pitcher plant
enabling access for the insects but no escape. Eventually they expire
and fall into the microbial fuel cell underneath. This generates the
electricity to power a series of LEDs located at the bottom of the
shade. These are activated when the house lights are turned off.
2. Mousetrap coffee table robot : A mechanised iris is built into the
top of a coffee table. This is attached to a infra red motion sensor.
Crumbs and food debris left on the table attract mice who gain access
to the table top via a hole built into one over size leg. Their motion
activates the iris and the mouse falls into the microbial fuel cell
housed under the table. This generates the energy to power the iris
motor and sensor.
3. Fly stealing robot : This robot encourages spiders to build their
webs within it's armature. Flies that become trapped in the web are
tracked by a camera. The robotic arm then moves over the dead fly,
picks it up and drops it into the microbial fuel cell. This generates
electricity to partially power the camera and robotic arm. This robot
also relies on the UV fly killer parasite robot to supplement it's
energy needs.
4. UV fly killer parasite : A microbial fuel cell is housed underneath
an ultra violet fly killer. As the flies expire they fall into the
fuel cell generating electricity that is stored in the capacitor bank.
This energy is available for the fly stealing robot.
5. Fly-paper robotic clock : This robot uses flypaper on a roller
mechanism to entrap insects. As the flypaper passes over a blade,
captured insects are scraped into a microbial fuel cell. Electricity
is generated to turn the rollers and power a small LCD clock.

MICROBIAL FUEL CELLS (MFC)
http://www.microbialfuelcell.org/www/
http://microbialfuelcell.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_fuel_cell
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/PublicationsAbstractFolder/EnzMicrobTech(2005).pdf
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/PublicationsAbstractFolder/3rdBiolFuelCellsSymp(2008).pdf
Small scale MFCs – Large scale power / by I.Ieropoulos, J.Greenman and
C.Melhuish
Abstract : "This study reports on the findings from the investigation
into small scale (6.25mL) Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC), connected
together as a network of multiple units. The MFCs contained unmodified
(no catalyst) carbon fibre electrodes and a standard ion-exchange
membrane for the proton transfer from the anode to the cathode. A
stack of four (4) of these units connected together were - in terms of
volume - the equivalent of a single analytical size (25mL) MFC with
the same unmodified electrode material and PEM, but produced a peak
power density of 60mW/m2. This was 2 orders of magnitude higher than
the
power density produced from a single analytical size MFC. The anode
microbial culture was of the type commonly found in domestic
wastewater fed with 5mM acetate as the carbon-energy (C/E) source. The
cultures had matured in the MFC environment for approximately 2 months
before being re-inoculated in the experimental MFC units. The cathode
was of the O2 diffusion open-to-air type, but for the purposes of the
polarization experimental runs, the cathodic electrodes were moistened
with ferricyanide solution, which performs more efficiently during the
initial experimental stages. It is furthermore shown that polarity
reversal is a function of MFC internal impedance. This occurs in
series connected networks in which one or more MFCs have developed a
different to the rest of the stack internal resistance. To the best of
the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report on small scale MFCs
producing such high power density figures."

AVAILABLE NOW : £53.00 (GBP)
http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/MATERIALS/MICROBIOLOGY/fuelcellassem.html
http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/MATERIALS/PDF/Price08.pdf
http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/MATERIALS/MICROBIOLOGY/fuelcell.html
"With readily-available chemicals (such as methylene blue), the fuel
cell can be used to generate a small electrical current from the
metabolic activities of ordinary yeast! Fuel cells like this are now
used by a leading UK brewery to test the activity of the yeast used
for their ales. The NCBE's improved high-quality cell is supplied with
neoprene gaskets, carbon fibre electrode material, cation-exchange
membrane and an illustrated instruction booklet. The microbial fuel
cell is ideal for investigations of respiration and students have even
won prizes with it at international science fairs."

FLY-POWERED FLYTRAP
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6366-selfsustaining-killer-robot-creates-a-stink.html
Self-sustaining killer robot creates a stink
BY Duncan Graham-Rowe / 09 September 2004

It may eat flies and stink to high heaven, but if this robot works, it
will be an important step towards making robots fully autonomous. To
survive without human help, a robot needs to be able to generate its
own energy. So Chris Melhuish and his team of robotics experts at the
University of the West of England in Bristol are developing a robot
that catches flies and digests them in a special reactor cell that
generates electricity. So what is the downside? The robot will most
likely have to attract the hapless flies by using a stinking lure
concocted from human excrement. Called EcoBot II, the robot is part of
a drive to make "release and forget" robots that can be sent into
dangerous or inhospitable areas to carry out remote industrial or
military monitoring of, say, temperature or toxic gas concentrations.
Sensors on the robot feed a data logger that periodically radios the
results back to a base station.

Exoskeleton electricity
The robot's energy source is the sugar in the polysaccharide called
chitin that makes up a fly's exoskeleton. EcoBot II digests the flies
in an array of eight microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which use bacteria
from sewage to break down the sugars, releasing electrons that drive
an electric current (see graphic). In its present form, EcoBot II
still has to be manually fed fistfuls of dead bluebottles, but the
ultimate aim of the UWE robotics team is to make the droid predatory,
using sewage as a bait to catch the flies. "One of the great things
about flies is that you can get them to come to you," says Melhuish.
The team has yet to tackle this, but speculates that it would involve
using a bottleneck-style flytrap with some form of pump to suck the
flies into the digestion chambers. With a top speed of 10 centimetres
per hour, EcoBot II's roving prowess is still modest to say the least.
"Every 12 minutes it gets enough energy to take a step forwards two
centimetres and send a transmission back," says Melhuish. But it does
not need to catch too many flies to do so, says team member Ioannis
Ieropoulos. In tests, EcoBot II travelled for five days on just eight
fat flies - one in each MFC.

Donated sewage
So how do flies get turned into electricity? Each MFC comprises an
anaerobic chamber filled with raw sewage slurry - donated by UWE's
local utility, Wessex Water. The flies become food for the bacteria
that thrive in the slurry. Enzymes produced by the bacteria break down
the chitin to release sugar molecules. These are then absorbed and
metabolised by the bacteria. In the process, the bacteria release
electrons that are harnessed to create an electric current. Previous
efforts to use carnivorous MFCs to drive a robot included an abortive
UWE effort: the Slugbot. This was designed to hunt slugs on farms by
using imaging systems to spot and grab the pests, and then deliver
them to a digester that produces methane to power a fuel cell. The
electricity generated would have been used to charge the Slugbot when
it arrived at a docking station. But the methane-based system took too
long to produce power, and the team realised that MFCs offered far
more promise. Elsewhere, researchers in Florida created a train-like
robot dubbed Chew Chew (New Scientist print edition, 22 July 2000)
that used MFCs to charge a battery, but the bacteria had to be fed on
sugar cubes. For an autonomous robot to survive in the wild, relying
on such refined foodstuffs is not an option, says Melhuish. EcoBot II,
on the other hand, is the first robot to use unrefined fuel. Just do
not stand downwind.

DEAD FLIES
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/PublicationsAbstractFolder/AutonRob(2006).pdf
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/PublicationsAbstractFolder/AdvRobSys(2005).pdf
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/PublicationsAbstractFolder/TAROS(2005).pdf
Artificial symbiosis: Towards a robot-microbe partnership
BY Ioannis Ieropoulos, Chris Melhuish, John Greenman, Ian Horsfield
Abstract : "The development of the robot EcoBot II, which exhibits
some partial form of
energetic autonomy, is reported. Microbial Fuel Cells were used as the
onboard self-
sustaining power supply, which incorporated bacterial cultures from
sewage sludge
and employed oxygen from free air for oxidation in the cathode. This
robot was able
to perform phototaxis, temperature sensing and wireless transmission
of sensed data
when fed (amongst other substrates) with flies. This is the first
robot in the world, to
utilise unrefined substrate, oxygen from free air and perform (three)
different token
tasks. The work presented in this paper focuses on the combination of
flies (substrate)
and oxygen (cathode) to power the EcoBot II."

CONTACT
http://westengland.academia.edu/IoannisYannisIeropoulos
http://people.brl.ac.uk/people/template.jsp?username=i-ieropo
email : Ioannis.Ieropoulos [at] brl.ac [dot] uk

ECOBOT PAPERS
http://en.scientificcommons.org/43546485
http://en.scientificcommons.org/42318299

ECOBOT III : ENERGY AUTONOMY
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/ecobot%20III/index.html
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/artificial%20gill/artificial%20gill.html
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/index.html
http://www.brl.ac.uk/research.html
http://www.brl.ac.uk/gallery.html
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/PublicationsAbstractFolder/EnzMicrobTech(2009).pdf
'Electricity from landfill leachate using microbial fuel cells' / By
J.Greenman, A.Gálvez, L.Giusti, I.Ieropoulos

CARNIVOROUS ROBOTS EXIST
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0331_060331_robot_flesh.html
Bug-Eating Robots Use Flies for Fuel
BY Sean Markey / March 31, 2006

At the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in England, researchers are
designing their newest bug-eating robot—Ecobot III. The device is the
latest in a series of small robots to emerge from the lab that are
powered by a diet of insects and other biomass. "We all talk about
robots being able to do stuff on their own, being intelligent and
autonomous," said lab director Chris Melhuish. "But the truth of the
fact is that without energy, they can't do anything at all." Most
robots today draw that energy from electrical cords, solar panels, or
batteries. But in the future some robots will need to operate beyond
the reach of power grids, sunlight, or helping human hands. Melhuish
and his colleagues think such release-and-forget robots can satisfy
their energy needs the same way wild animals do—by foraging for food.
"Animals are the proof that this is possible," he said.

Slugbot
Over the last decade, Melhuish's team has produced a string of bots
powered by sugar, rotten apples, or dead flies. The biomass is
converted into electricity through a series of stomachlike microbial
fuel cells, or MFCs. Living batteries, MFCs generate power from
colonies of bacteria that release electrons as the microorganisms
digest plant and animal matter. (Electricity is simply a flow of
electrons.) The lab's first device, named Slugbot, was an artificial
predator that hunted for common garden slugs. While Slugbot never
digested its prey, it laid the groundwork for future bots powered by
biomass. In 2004 researchers unveiled Ecobot II. About the size of a
dessert plate, the device could operate for 12 days on a diet of eight
flies. "The flies [were] given as a whole insect to each of the fuel
cells on board the robot," said Ioannis Ieropoulos, who co-developed
Ecobot II as part of his Ph.D. research. With its capacitors charged,
the bot could roll 3 to 6 inches (8 to 16 centimeters) an hour, moving
toward light while recording temperature. It sent data via a radio
transmitter. While hardly a speedster, Ecobot II was the first robot
powered by biomass that could sense its world, process it, act in it,
and communicate, Melhuish says. The scientist sees analogs in the
autonomously powered robots of the future. "If you really do want
robots that are going to … monitor fences, [oceans], pollution levels,
or carbon dioxide—all of those things—what you need are very, very
cheap little robots," he said. "Now our robots are quite big. But in
20 to 30 years time, they could be quite minuscule."

More Power
Whether microbial fuel-cell technology can advance enough to power
those robots, however, is unclear. Stuart Wilkinson, a mechanical
engineer at the University of South Florida in Tampa, developed the
world's first biomass-powered robot, a toy-train-like bot nicknamed
Chew-Chew that ran on sugar cubes. He says the major drawback of MFCs
is that it takes a big fuel cell to produce a small amount of power.
Most AA batteries, for example, produce far more power than a single
MFC. "MFCs are capable of running low-power electronics, but are not
well suited to power-hungry motors needed for machine motion,"
Wilkinson said in an email interview. He added that scientists "need
to develop MFC technology further before it can be of much practical
use for robot propulsion." Ieropoulos, Ecobot II's co-developer,
agrees that MFCs need a power boost. He and his colleagues are
exploring ways to improve the materials used in MFCs and to maintain
resident microbes at their peak.

Bot Weaning
To date, the Bristol team has hand-fed its bots. But if the
researchers are going to realize their vision of autonomously powered
robots, then the machines will need to start gathering their own food.
When Ecobot II debuted in 2004, Melhuish suggested one way that it
might lure and capture its fly food-source: a combination fly-trap/
suction pump baited with pheromones. Whether the accessory will appear
in Ecobot III is anyone's guess. The BRL team remains tight-lipped
about their current project, preferring to finish their work in secret
before discussing it publicly. Melhuish will say this, however: "What
we've got to do is develop a better digestion system … . There are
many, many problems that have to be overcome, and waste removal is one
of them."

YEAST-POWERED FUEL CELLS
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16882-yeastpowered-fuel-cell-feeds-on-human-blood.html
SEWAGE SLURRY AS FUEL
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4761-plugging-into-the-power-of-sewage.html
PLANKTON-EATING SUBMARINES
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125715.900-plankton-could-power-robotic-submarines.html

MACHINES BREAK
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/video-robo-weap/
BY Noah Shachtman / October 18, 2007
"The tragedy in South Africa that killed nine soldiers isn’t the first
time a robotic weapon has spun out of control. Here’s a video I
obtained a few years back, showing a XM-101 Common Remotely Operated
Weapons Station connected to an Apache chaingun, emptying its magazine
of 30 mm high explosive rounds — and then turning towards the camera,
looking for new targets to nail. I’m told — but cannot confirm — that
this footage was shot during a demonstration for VIPs, and that
several members of Congress would’ve been in serious jeopardy, had the
weapon not run out of ammo. {thanks to info from KS, who "was there
when it happened, and I was lying flat on the ground together with US
Army officers.}"

BAD CODE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7poF0M7H5M
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/business/2007/0710161034.asp?S=IT%20in%20Defence&A=DFN&O=FPTOP
Did software kill soldiers?
BY Leon Engelbrecht / 16 October 2007

The National Defence Force is probing whether a software glitch led to
an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and
seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday. SA
National Defence Force spokesman brigadier general Kwena Mangope says
the cause of the malfunction is not yet known and will be determined
by a Board of Inquiry. The police are conducting a separate
investigation into the incident. Media reports say the shooting
exercise, using live ammunition, took place at the SA Army's Combat
Training Centre, at Lohatlha, in the Northern Cape, as part of an
annual force preparation endeavour. Mangope told The Star that it “is
assumed that there was a mechanical problem, which led to the
accident. The gun, which was fully loaded, did not fire as it normally
should have," he said. "It appears as though the gun, which is
computerised, jammed before there was some sort of explosion, and then
it opened fire uncontrollably, killing and injuring the soldiers."
Other reports have suggested a computer error might have been to
blame. Defence pundit Helmoed-Römer Heitman told the Weekend Argus
that if “the cause lay in computer error, the reason for the tragedy
might never be found”. Electronics engineer and defence company CEO
Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a
mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was
involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed
Projects Catchy and Dart.

Software details
During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, “I
personally saw a gun go out of control several times,” Young says.
“They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side
of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from
swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the polls down.” Young says he
was also told at the time that the gun's original equipment
manufacturer, Oerlikon, had warned that the GDF Mk V twin 35mm cannon
system was not designed for fully automatic control. Yet the guns were
automated. At the time, SA was still subject to an arms embargo and
Oerlikon played no role in the upgrade. “If I was an engineer on the
Board of Inquiry, I would ask for all details about the software for
the fire control system and gun drives,” Young says. “If it was not a
mechanical or operating system error, you must find out which company
developed the software and did the upgrade.”

Young says in the 1990s the defence force's acquisitions agency,
Armscor, allocated project money on a year-by-year basis, meaning
programmes were often rushed. “It would not surprise me if major
shortcuts were taken in the qualification of the upgrades. A system
like that should never fail to the dangerous mode [rather to the safe
mode], except if it was a shoddy design or a shoddy modification. “I
think there have been multiple failures here; in software and the
absence of interlocking safeguards.” He asks if the guns were given
arcs of fire and whether these were enforced with electromechanical
end stops. “On a firing range you don't want guns to fire through 360
degrees.” Oerlikon's local agent, Intertechnic, did not respond to
requests for comment. The SANDF said investigations were still under
way. The air defence artillery will, in the next two years, receive
new missiles, radar and computer-based fire control equipment worth R3
billion as part of projects Guardian and Protector.

ASIMOV'S THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS, AMENDED
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/essay_guide.html#robotics
http://robots.net/article/2885.html
http://www.physorg.com/news164887377.html

PSYCHOPATHIC ROBOTS, BY DEFINITION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u822RGsl_E4
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=weng_yueh_hsuan
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/robo-ethics/

Two years ago, a military robot used in the South African army killed
nine soldiers after a malfunction. Earlier this year, a Swedish
factory was fined after a robot machine injured one of the workers
(though part of the blame was assigned to the worker). Robots have
been found guilty of other smaller offenses such as an incorrectly
responding to a request. So how do you prevent problems like this from
happening? Stop making psychopathic robots, say robot experts. “If you
build artificial intelligence but don’t think about its moral sense or
create a conscious sense that feels regret for doing something wrong,
then technically it is a psychopath,” says Josh Hall, a scientist who
wrote the book Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of a Machine. For
years, science fiction author Issac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
were regarded as sufficient for robotics enthusiasts. The laws, as
first laid out in the short story “Runaround,” were simple: A robot
may not injure a human being or allow one to come to harm; a robot
must obey orders given by human beings; and a robot must protect its
own existence. Each of the laws takes precedence over the ones
following it, so that under Asimov’s rules, a robot cannot be ordered
to kill a human, and it must obey orders even if that would result in
its own destruction. But as robots have become more sophisticated and
more integrated into human lives, Asimov’s laws are just too
simplistic, says Chien Hsun Chen, coauthor of a paper published in the
International Journal of Social Robotics last month. The paper has
sparked off a discussion among robot experts who say it is time for
humans to get to work on these ethical dilemmas.

Accordingly, robo-ethicists want to develop a set of guidelines that
could outline how to punish a robot, decide who regulates them and
even create a ”legal machine language” that could help police the next
generation of intelligent automated devices. Even if robots are not
entirely autonomous, there needs to be a clear path of responsibility
laid out for their actions, says Leila Katayama, research scientist at
open-source robotics developer Willow Garage. “We have to know who
takes credit when the system does well and when it doesn’t,” she says.
“That needs to be very transparent.” A human-robot co-existence
society could emerge by 2030, says Chen in his paper. Already iRobot’s
Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and Scooba floor cleaner are a part of
more than 3 million American households. The next generation robots
will be more sophisticated and are expected to provide services such
as nursing, security, housework and education. These machines will
have the ability to make independent decisions and work reasonably
unsupervised. That’s why, says Chen, it may be time to decide who
regulates robots.

The rules for this new world will have to cover how humans should
interact with robots and how robots should behave. Responsibility for
a robot’s actions is a one-way street today, says Hall. “So far, it’s
always a case that if you build a machine that does something wrong it
is your fault because you built the machine,” he says. “But there’s a
clear day in the future that we will build machines that are complex
enough to make decisions and we need to be ready for that.” Assigning
blame in case of a robot-related accident isn’t always
straightforward. Earlier this year, a Swedish factory was fined after
a malfunctioning robot almost killed a factory worker who was
attempting to repair the machine generally used to lift heavy rocks.
Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the worker approached the
robot without any hesitation but the robot came to life and grabbed
the victim’s head. In that case, the prosecutor held the factory
liable for poor safety conditions but also lay part of the blame on
the worker. “Machines will evolve to a point where we will have to
increasingly decide whether the fault for doing something wrong lies
with someone who designed the machine or the machine itself,” says
Hall. Rules also need to govern social interaction between robots and
humans, says Henrik Christensen, head of robotics at Georgia Institute
of Technology’s College of Computing. For instance, robotics expert
Hiroshi Ishiguro has created a bot based on his likeness. “There we
are getting into the issue of how you want to interact with these
robots,” says Christensen. “Should you be nice to a person and rude to
their likeness? Is it okay to kick a robot dog but tell your kids to
not do that with a normal dog? How do you tell your children about the
difference?”

Christensen says ethics around robot behavior and human interaction is
not so much to protect either, but to ensure the kind of interaction
we have with robots is the “right thing.” Some of these guidelines
will be hard-coded into the machines, others will become part of the
software and a few will require independent monitoring agencies, say
experts. That will also require creating a “legal machine language,”
says Chen. That means a set of non-verbal rules, parts or all of which
can be encoded in the robots. These rules would cover areas such as
usability that would dictate, for instance, how close a robot can come
to a human under various conditions, and safety guidelines that would
conform to our current expectations of what is lawful. Still the
efforts to create a robot that can successfully interact with humans
over time will likely be incomplete, say experts. “People have been
trying to sum up what we mean by moral behavior in humans for
thousands of years,” says Hall. “Even if we get guidelines on robo-
ethics the size of the federal code it would still fall short.
Morality is impossible to write in formal terms.”

CONTACT
Yueh-Hsuan Weng
http://www.yhweng.tw/
http://works.bepress.com/weng_yueh_hsuan/
email : yhweng.cs94g [at] nctu.edu [dot] tw

CODING AN ETHICAL PATCH / Embedding Ethics Into Military Robots
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/online-publications/formalizationv35.pdf
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/online-publications/ArkinUlamTechReport2009.pdf
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/online-publications/formalizationv35.pdf
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/online-publications/techinwar-arkin-final.pdf

CONTACT
Ronald Arkin
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/aimosaic/faculty/arkin/
email : arkin [at] gatech [dot] edu

ARTIFICIAL CONSCIENCE
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/ethics/
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/ethics/#pub
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/aimosaic/robot-lab/research/MissionLab/
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/ai/robot-lab/ethics/#multi

PROGRAMMING GUILT
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11424_3-10278435-90.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10281328-76.html
Q&A: Robotics engineer aims to give robots a humane touch
BY Dara Kerr / July 8, 2009

"Right now, we are looking at designing systems that can comply with
internationally prescribed laws of war and our own codes of conduct
and rules of engagement. We've decided it is important to embed in
these systems with the moral emotion of guilt." --Ronald Arkin

Can robots be more humane than humans in fighting wars? Robotics
engineer Ronald Arkin of the Georgia Institute of Technology believes
this is a not-too-distant possibility. He has just finished a three-
year contract with the U.S. Army designing software to create ethical
robots.
As robots are increasingly being used by the U.S. military, Arkin has
devoted his lifework to configuring robots with a built-in "guilt
system" that eventually could make them better at avoiding civilian
casualties than human soldiers. These military robots would be
embedded with internationally prescribed laws of war and rules of
engagement, such as those in the Geneva Conventions. Arkin talked with
CNET News about how robots can be ethically programmed and some of the
philosophical questions that come up when using machines in warfare.
Below is an edited excerpt of our conversation.

Q: What made you first begin thinking about designing software to
create ethical robots?
Arkin: I'd been working in robotics for almost 25 years and I noticed
the successes that had been happening in the field. Progress had been
steady and sure and it started to dawn on me that these systems are
ready, willing, and able to begin going out into the battlefield on
behalf of our soldiers. Then the question came up--what is the right
ethical basis for these systems? How are we going to ensure that they
could behave appropriately to the standards we set for our human war
fighters? In 2004, at the first international symposium on roboethics
in Sanremo, Italy, we had speakers from the Vatican, the Geneva
Conventions, the Pugwash Institute, and it became clear that this was
a pressing problem. Trying to view myself as a responsible scientist,
I felt it was important to do something about it and that got me
embarked on this quest.

Q. What do you mean by an ethical robot? How would a robot feel
empathy?
Arkin: I didn't say it would feel empathy, I said ethical. Empathy is
another issue and that is for a different domain. We are talking about
battlefield robots in the work I am currently doing. That is not to
say I'm not interested in those other questions and I hope to move my
research, in the future, in that particular direction. Right now, we
are looking at designing systems that can comply with internationally
prescribed laws of war and our own codes of conduct and rules of
engagement. We've decided it is important to embed in these systems
with the moral emotion of guilt. We use this as a means of downgrading
the robots' ability to engage targets if it is acting in ways which
exceed the predicted battle damage in certain circumstances.

Q. You've written about a built-in "guilt system." Is this what you're
talking about?
Arkin: We have incorporated a component called an "ethical adaptor" by
studying the models of guilt that human beings have and embedding
those within a robotic system. The whole purpose of this is very
focused and what makes it tractable is that we're dealing with
something called "bounded morality," which is understanding the
particular limit of the situation that the robot is to operate in. We
have thresholds established for analogs of guilt that cause the robot
to eventually refuse to use certain classes of weapons systems (or
refuse to use weapons entirely) if it gets to a point where the
predictions it's making are unacceptable by its own standards.

Q. You, the engineer, decide the ethics, right?
Arkin: We don't engineer the ethics; the ethics come from treaties
that have been designed by lawyers and philosophers. These have been
codified over thousands of years and now exist as international
protocol. What we engineer is translating those laws and rules of
engagement into actionable items that the robot can understand and
work with.

Q. So, right now, you're working on software for the ethical robot and
you have a contract with the U.S. Army, right?
Arkin: We actually just finished, as of (July 1), the three-year
project we had for the U.S. Army, which was designing prototype
software for the U.S. Army Research Office. This isn't software that
is intended to go into the battlefield anytime soon--it is all proof
of concept--we are striving to show that the systems can potentially
function with an ethical basis. I believe our prototype design has
demonstrated that.

Q. Robot drones like land mine detectors are already used by the
military, but are controlled by humans. How would an autonomous robot
be different in the battlefield?
Arkin: Drones usually refer to unmanned aero vehicles. Let me make
sure we're talking about the same sort of thing--you're talking about
ground vehicles for detecting improvised explosive devices?

Q. Either one, either air or land.
Arkin: Well, they'd be used in different ways. There are already
existing autonomous systems that are either in development or have
been deployed by the military. It's all a question of how you define
autonomy. The trip-wire for how we talk about autonomy, in this
context, is whether an autonomous system (after detecting a target)
can engage that particular target without asking for any further human
intervention at that particular point. There is still a human in the
loop when we tell a squad of soldiers to go into a building and take
it using whatever force is necessary. That is still a high-level
command structure, but the soldiers have the ability to engage targets
on their own. With the increased battlefield tempo, things are moving
much faster than they did 40 or 100 years ago, and it becomes harder
for humans to make intelligent, rational decisions. As such, it is my
contention that these systems, ultimately, can lead to a reduction in
non-combatant fatalities over human level performance. That's not to
say that I don't have the utmost respect for our war fighters in the
battlefield, I most certainly do and I'm committed to provide them
with the best technical equipment in support of their efforts as well.

Q. In your writing you say robots can be more humane than humans in
the battlefield, can you elaborate on this?
Arkin: Well, I say that's my thesis, it's not a conclusion at this
point. I don't believe unmanned systems will be able to be perfectly
ethical in the battlefield, but I am convinced (at this point in time)
that they can potentially perform more ethically than human soldiers
are capable of. I'm talking about wars 10 to 20 years down the field.
Much more research and technology has to be developed for this vision
to become a reality. But, I believe it's an important avenue of
pursuit for military research. So, if warfare is going to continue and
if autonomous systems are ultimately going to be deployed, I believe
it is crucial that we must have ethical systems in the battlefield. I
believe that we can engineer systems that perform better than humans
-- we already have robots that are stronger than people, faster than
people, and if you look at computers like Deep Blue we have robots
that can be smarter than people. I'm not talking about replacing a
human soldier in all aspects; I'm talking about using these systems in
limited circumstances such as counter sniper operations or taking
buildings. Under those circumstances we can engineer enough morality
into them that they may indeed do better than human beings can--that's
the benchmark I'm working towards.

Q. Ok, what kind of errors could a military robot make in the
battlefield in regards to ethical dilemmas?
Arkin: Well, a lot of this has been sharpened by debates with my
colleagues in philosophy, computer science, and computer professionals
for social responsibility. There are a lot of things that could
potentially go wrong. One of the big questions (much of this is
derived from what's called "just war theory") is responsibility--if
there is a war crime, someone must be to blame. We have worked hard
within our system to make sure that responsibility attribution is as
clear as possible using a component called the "responsibility
advisor." To me, you can't say the robot did it; maybe it was the
soldier who deployed it, the commanding officer, the manufacturer, the
designer, the scientist (such as myself) who conceived of it, or the
politicians that allowed this to be used. Somehow, responsibility must
be attributed. Another aspect is that technological advancement in the
battlefield may make us more likely to enter into war. To me it is not
unique to robotics--whenever you create something that gives you any
kind of advantage, whether it is gun powder or a bow and arrow, the
temptation to go off to war is more likely. Hopefully our nation has
the wherewithal to be able to resist such temptation. Some argue it
can't be done right, period--it's just too hard for machines to
discriminate. I would agree it's too hard to do it now. But with the
advent of new sensors and network centric warfare where all this stuff
is wired together along with the global information grid, I believe
these systems will have more information available to them than any
human soldier could possibly process and manage at a given point in
time. Thus, they will be able to make better informed decisions. The
military is concerned with squad cohesion. What happens to the "band
of brothers" effect if you have a robot working alongside with a squad
of human soldiers, especially if it's one that might report back on
moral infractions it observes with other soldiers in the squad? My
contention is that if a robot can take a bullet for me, stick its head
around a corner for me and cover my back better than Joe can, then
maybe that is a small risk to take. Secondarily it can reduce the risk
of human infractions in the battlefield by its mere presence. The
military may not be happy with a robot with the capability of refusing
an order. So we have to design a system that can explain itself. With
some reluctance, I have designed an override capability for the
system. But the robot will still inform the user on all the potential
ethical infractions that it believes it would be making, and thus
force the responsibility on the human. Also, when that override is
taken, the aberrant action could be sent immediately to command for
after-action review.

Q. There is a congressional mandate requiring that by 2010, one third
of all operational deep-strike aircraft be unmanned and, by 2015, one
third of all ground combat vehicles be unmanned. How soon could we see
this autonomous robot software being used in the field?
Arkin: There is a distinction between unmanned systems and autonomous
unmanned systems. That's the interesting thing about autonomy--it's
kind of a slippery slope, decision making can be shared. First, it can
be under pure remote control by a human being. Next, there's mixed
initiative where some of the decision making rests in the robot and
some of it rests in the human being. Then there's semi-autonomy where
the robot has certain functions and the human deals with it in a
slightly different way. Finally, you can get more autonomous systems
where the robot is tasked, it goes out and does its mission, and then
returns (not unlike what you would expect from a pilot or a soldier).
The congressional mandate was marching orders for the Pentagon and the
Pentagon took it very seriously. It's not an absolute requirement but
significant progress is being made. Some of the systems are far more
autonomous than others--for example the PackBot in Iraq is not very
autonomous at all. It is used for finding improvised explosive devices
by the roadside, many of these have saved the lives of our soldiers by
taking the explosion on their behalf.

Q. You just came out with a book called "Governing Lethal Behavior in
Autonomous Robots." Do you want to explain in a bit more detail what
it's about?
Arkin: Basically the book covers the space of this three-year project
that I just finished. It deals with the basis, motivation, underlying
philosophy, and opinions people have based on a survey we did for the
Army on the use of lethal autonomous robots in the battlefield. It
provides the mathematical formalisms underlying the approach we take
and deals with how it is to be represented internally within the
robotic system. And, most significantly, it describes several
scenarios in which I believe these systems can be used effectively
with some preliminary prototype results showing the progress we made
in this period.

FLESH-EATING ROBOT STORY COMMENT ANALYSIS
http://www.cracked.com/blog/which-site-has-the-stupidest-commenters-on-the-internet/
"To see how commenter intelligence varies across different sites, I’ve
created a scientifical method of analysis. By choosing a single story
that multiple sites have reported on–Flesh Eating Robots–I’d be able
to observe how different communities respond to the same stimulus."

from reddit
Pfmohr2: "Once again, this is being taken completely too far, without
proper context. Technically the title is not incorrect, but pretty
damn close. This thing runs off of a biomass boiler. Now, I’m sure you
all understand how a boiler works; heat+water=steam. The steam would
be used to power the machine. Now, how does one create heat? Burning
things. What is burned? Combustibles aka biomass. Namely wood. If you
look at the designs on the claw, there is an attached chainsaw. That
is because the main source of fuel for this bad boy will be wood.
Technically bodies could be used, but quite frankly they are not going
to burn with the consistency and intensity needed to keep that boiler
going. I have literally not seen a single link to this on reddit which
does not claim this thing will be fueled by bodies; technically
possible, but far from the ideal fuel."
hideogumpa: "As long as the ambulance version puts patient life above
hunger, I’m cool with it."

from the guardian
MartynInEurope: "Trust the yanks to reinvent the goat."

FOX COVERAGE BEFORE
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,532492,00.html
"It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century
technology — and a 20th-century horror movie. 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."

FOX COVERAGE AFTER
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533382,00.html
Biomass-Eating Military Robot Is a Vegetarian, Company Says / 7.16.09
"A steam-powered, biomass-eating military robot being designed for the
Pentagon is a vegetarian, its maker says. 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. But, contrary to reports, including one that
appeared on FOXNews.com, the EATR will not eat animal or human
remains. Dr. Bob Finkelstein, president of RTI and a cybernetics
expert, said the EATR would be programmed to recognize specific fuel
sources and avoid others. “If it’s not on the menu, it’s not going to
eat it,” Finkelstein said. “There are certain signatures from
different kinds of materials” that would distinguish vegetative
biomass from other material."

RTI said Thursday in a press release: "Despite the far-reaching
reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured
that the engine Cyclone (Cyclone Power Technologies Inc.) has
developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass
clippings and wood chips -- small, plant-based items for which RTI’s
robotic technology is designed to forage. 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 RTI." EATR will be
powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone, of Pompano
Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up
fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity. 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. Upon the EATR
platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport,
an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship. In press
materials, Robotic Technology presents EATR as an essentially benign
artificial creature that fills its belly through "foraging," despite
the obvious military purpose."

FORMAL DENIAL, UNRELATED
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6295138.stm
British blamed for Basra badgers

"British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of
ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra. Word spread among the
populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like
beasts into the area to sow panic. But several of the creatures,
caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as
honey badgers. The rumours spread because the animals had appeared
near the British base at Basra airport. UK military spokesman Major
Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not
released man-eating badgers into the area. "We have been told these
are indigenous nocturnal carnivores that don't attack humans unless
cornered."

The director of Basra's veterinary hospital, Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, has
inspected several of the animals' corpses. He told the AFP news
agency: "These appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They
are known locally as Al-Girta. "Talk that this animal was brought by
the British forces is incorrect and unscientific." But the assurances
did little to convince some members of the public. One housewife, Suad
Hassan, 30, claimed she had been attacked by one of the badgers as she
slept. "My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer,"
she said. "It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey," she
told AFP."