
Robots to start killing crown-of-thorns starfish on Great Barrier Reef - astdb
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-31/crown-of-thorns-starfish-killing-robot-great-barrier-reef-qld/10183072
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trexen
The barrier reef is thousands of kilometres long. That's a lot of robots.

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TheGrassyKnoll
Fire, the wheel, duct tape, and now another human milestone: killer robots...

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sametmax
Destroy, move, fix, destroy. Full circle.

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carroccio
Old, 2015

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astdb
RangerBot is an advanced version of the 2015 robot, with a newer submersible
design, handheld remote-control and computer vision to identify invasive
species.

"In 2015, an early prototype of the robot "COTSbot" made international news.
Now its successor the RangerBot is significantly more advanced.

The RangerBot is equipped with a vision system that allows it to "see"
underwater while being operated using a tablet.

QUT Professor Matt Dunbabin said the robot used real-time vision to navigate
and identify starfish."

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liftbigweights
Any headline beginning with "Robots ready to start killing..." really is
unnerving.

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nfrankel
> The starfish is recognised as one of three major threats to the World
> Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, along with coral bleaching and cyclone
> damage.

Of course, it's easier to kill something than to tackle global warming...

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pohl
Skynet will eventually recognize humans as a threat to the Great Barrier Reef.

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devoply
If we build robots that can destroy, those robots will ultimately not be under
the control of governments, but instead corporations. Eventually those
corporations will wrestle control out of the hands of governments through hard
power. There won't be much that can stop them.

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pawelmurias
Nice try starfish

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devoply
First they came for the starfish, but I didn't say anything because I was not
a starfish.

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londons_explore
Isn't the great barrier reef about to get wiped out by global warming anyway?

Might as well let the starfish have at it.

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dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

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er0l
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0041-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0041-2)

I'm assuming OP's referring to the bleaching caused by global warming. 2016
event killed off 29% of the coral there.

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dang
A comment can be about that and still be unsubstantive. Flippant comments on
large-topics tend to be trollish, and that one was over the line.

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kalla
Reminds me of another short-sighted killing spree that resulted in upsetting
the ecological balance.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign)

I wonder who approved this one and what research they read that led them to
believe that this can be good in the long term.

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lotophage
Crown of Thorns is an invasive species. It's not indigenous to the area.

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abecedarius
And robots are not yet self-replicators. If this is a bad idea, it's at least
bad in a new way, right?

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goldenkey
Just seems foolish to kill them just for living. If starfish are successful,
why don't we just find a way to eat their delicious starmeat? I for one would
love to goto a seafood star bar. Get my bib on and chow down.

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rdl
We tried this with lionfish in the Caribbean; it is just really challenging to
catch them in a non-destructive way so they are economically viable. And IMO
they don’t taste very good unless fried, at which point everything tastes the
same.

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oh_sigh
There's always animal feed, or to be used for fat or protein isolates

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rdl
Yes, but sending a human scuba diver down 3h/day to catch max 20kg of lionfish
for $50-100 on loaded cost per dive, or $150-300/day is...not an efficient
solution for that. If the fish could be sold at enough of a premium it might
defray some of those costs, but for animal feed you'd be about $0.50/kg.

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JTxt
killing robots -> harvesting robots

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rdl
Yeah, robots might dramatically reduce the cost, making it viable.

