| | The Regional Recusant, un hebdomadaire (Washington, DC)
Monday, July 2 – anno domini MMVII
DARPA purchases rights to abortion-surviving fetuses, promises bright future in Military AI
In the largest merge of science and state since eugenics, DARPA announced last Friday that it had purchased the rights to all abortion-surviving fetuses for use in current artificial-intelligence programs.
Following May’s unveiling of DARPA’s moth-cyborg project—which involves the synthetic growth of adult moth flesh around a computer-implanted and computer-controlled pupa, guaranteeing complete control of the living machine through “direct electrical muscle excitation, electrical stimulation of neurons, projection of ultrasonic pulses [. . .] , projection of pheromones, electromechanical stimulation of insect sensory cells, and presentation of optical cues with micro-optical visual presentation”—Friday’s press conference raised few eyebrows.
“This is about terrorism,” said Dr. Amit Lal, program manager for DARPA's Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems program (HI-MEMS). As valuable as the human-bred machine-moths’ ability to “carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone or a gas sensor, to relay back information gathered from the target destination” for purposes of foreign and domestic terrorism reconnaissance may be, the new human-cyborg project will afford any of DARPA’s potential customers an innumerable selection of “much more useful opportunities for fighting terrorism worldwide.” Dr. Anthony Tether, director of DARPA since 2001, told The RR: “While we plan on equipping our moths with some sort of weaponry, the extent to which they could ever inflict meaningful damage on the enemy is understandably small; this next project seeks to remedy the moths’ short-comings while upping the ante all around. This is the two-dollar candy bar in the vending machine.”
Dr. Francis B. Mephastophilis, assistant head of both programs, told the Associated Press that the same basic technology would be used in both projects: “Every year, so many unwanted fetuses—stubborn little guys—are put down by doctors and nurses in hospitals and clinics when the abortion procedure fails to extinguish the fetuses’ life-force, or whatever you want to call it. This is wasted potential. We’re happy to take what we can get, and we have reason to believe that—planted and installed early enough—our technology can be used to gain complete control of the fetus as it matures outside the womb.” When manpower is becoming such a hot issue in today’s “overseas adventures,” Dr. Mephastophilis believes that both of his new projects will grant the state the ability to execute its policies without having to worry about loss of life. “Anti-war advocates are always on the television, in the newspapers, complaining—justifiably so, don’t get me wrong—that the Iraqi conflict is killing our men and women. Thousands dead. It’s horrible. This is where we come in. Once again, technology offers to take out the grime and pain of a job, to alleviate the burden of a demanding world—and, as always, just at the time the people need it.”
To Vice President Dick Cheney, Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), the Nation of Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), this comes as a breath of fresh air; for indeed, the Defense Authorization Act of 2001 has specified that at least one-third of all operational ground vehicles must be unmanned by 2015. AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr told The RR that he can hardly wait until the project is complete: “It just goes to show you what man can do. This opens up a totally new world of possibility. To have total control of an entire army—and yet without the slightest danger of losing human life—it’s like we’re all kids in a cookie jar.”
DARPA spokeswoman Tiki Marfoon scoffed at claims of a possibly over-reaching scientific state, calling critics “caveman-loving, astrological, flat-earth sun-worshippers.” Calling for international unanimity on the beneficence of the project, Marfoon ended Wednesday’s press conference on a humanistic note: “Progress is the ticket—we will become.”
Geoff C. Adams is an unlicensed freelance dilettante and has claimed to write for The Regional Recusant for six years. |
| | Posted 7/5/2007 9:42 PM - 91 Views - 8 eProps - 5 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
