WALTHAM, MA—Heralding its latest product as a breakthrough in artificial-intelligence technology, defense contractor Raytheon announced Friday it has built a military robot capable of composing heart-wrenchingly poignant poems about the relentless horrors of war.
The robot, known as the Laureate-IV, reportedly uses sophisticated radar imaging to survey the carnage of war-torn landscapes and runs state-of-the-art facial recognition software to scan the terrified expressions of survivors, data it can then analyze using a complex poetic algorithm to create lyric verse with up to 40 times the pathos of poems produced by human writers.
“With its 17.3 petaflop processor and bomb-proof titanium chassis, this robot can enter any combat zone and, employing poetic devices such as meter, enjambment, apostrophe, and symbolism, give full expression to the anguish and disillusionment war brings,” said Raytheon CEO Thomas A. Kennedy, explaining that a single machine would be able to match the poetic output of several thousand PTSD-ravaged veterans. “Within minutes of deployment, the Laureate-IV can assess the situation on the ground and draft plaintive lines about what it’s like to survive an IED ambush only to be left holding a 20-year-old’s intestines in as he bleeds out from a shrapnel wound, his dreams for life disappearing with the wind-blown desert sands.”
“The result will be beautiful, hauntingly descriptive verse,” the executive added.
Leave a Reply