Can robots debone a chicken?
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
But it's sad to see the amount of sophistication in deboning when the actual slaughtering still seems to be a "mostly works" thing. I wish they'd invest the time and money in lab meat instead.
Regardless, money being spent on deboning technology is not automatically money that lab meat research missed out on. Research is not quite that zero sum..
1) http://www.theawl.com/2011/11/a-conspiracy-of-hogs-the-mcrib...
This robot has an obvious business/marketing plan: the moment its better & cheaper than humans, it'll start to replace them everywhere. Hit that point and it'll sell in more or less known quantities. Don't hit it, it's (at best) a technology looking for a problem.
Lab grown meat is who-the-fuck-knows R&D. How cheap does it need to be to sell how much of it/ How do we know when it tastes good enough. Who will buy it when it just hits the shelves. Who will buy it ten years after. etc. etc.
Two completely different and probably non-competing buckets of time & money.
I say this based on the reaction to what was dubbed "pink slime" and about which the media and the public flipped out. The result is that a completely safe and efficient process to increase yield came under fire because of hysteria grounded in not a whit of logic.
People are also whipping themselves into a frenzy about genetically modified organisms. They're also convincing themselves that organic food is what they should have been eating in lieu of food treated with chemicals(1).
So if a public that is generally ignorant about food production is (over)reacting to existing scientific enhancements it follows that the reaction to a completely scientificly generated product would not be met with acceptance.
Disclaimer: I'm part of a fifth generation farm family. We farm corn, soybeans, and milo. No livestock.
(1)Certified organic food is often treated with chemicals, sometimes the same chemicals as non-organic, but at different dilutions and with different application methods.
I'm not against mechanically recovered meat. But I'd prefer children to get chunks of real meat cooked well than a squirt of slime and salt and flavourings in a crumb coating which is then fried and served with a sugary sauce. (ketchup, bbq, etc.) That combination of fat, salt, and sugar makes food "hyper palatable"[1] and, while much cheaper than "real" food contains little in the way of useful nutrition.
[1] Not my term. It's used to describe food where the balance of salt, sweet, and fat have been carefully balanced, and where the food is very easy to eat, because it's small or soft and easy to chew. See the progression from roast chicken, to deep fried chicken, to deep fried chicken with a salty coating and sauces, to "popcorn chicken" which are small chunks of meat, with a lot of fat-soaked salty coating.
2. If we don't trust the FDA to regulate based on health consequences, what the hell do we pay them for?
3. It is, in strict terms, ignorant to not know that ammonia is a component of animal metabolism which we produce and excrete naturally. Ground beef always has ammonia in it (albeit about a quarter as much as in treated meat).
2 - Straw man. We pay them for being better than the alternative. I don't trust them because, like most of our government, they are ultimately beholden to lobbying and special interest money.
3 - 4x the ammonia is not really a selling point, and in fact makes the case that rejecting this food out of caution is not ignorant.
Further, I don't think you can call it ignorant for people to reject eating foods that make them go "ick!" I could eat maggots. Is it ignorance that makes me choose not to, or personal taste?
2. Be that as it may, they are the people in charge of telling us whether or not food is safe to eat, and they said this was safe to eat. They also happen to know a lot more about this stuff than we do, which brings us to...
3. It is quite literal ignorance to say "Ammonia? I have a bottle of that under my sink! And they feed this to children?!" while ignorant of the fact that you exhale ammonia with every breath, and could eat the same amount of ammonia by simply making a bigger burger.
Not that that gives it an automatic pass, but it sets the bar for someone saying, "Yeah, we tested this and it's completely safe to eat" a hell of a lot lower.
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06...
I don't doubt a sizable chunk of public opinion originated 'from the gut' but characterising all concern over the product as illogical / irrational is completely disingenuous.
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/25/us-food-slime-scie...
> characterising all concern over the product as illogical / irrational is completely disingenuous.
Frankly... no, I don't think it is. In absence of any documented health issues, in absence of any reason to suspect danger, what is the logical, rational reason for concern?
You may not like it[1], and if enough people don't like the idea that may be cause to stop selling it, but calling it unsafe is definitely both ignorant and irrational.
[0] http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fcn/fcnDetailNavigatio...
[1] Which is also pretty irrational, because it's pretty much the same thing as ground beef, just slightly more so... but no accounting for taste.
I simply highlighted that concern over the product originated from a USDA microbiologist. That fact refutes your characterisation of all opposition as entirely 'hysterical'.
At no point have I said ammonium hydroxide is unsafe, or that the product is unsafe. I simply pointed out that a qualified scientist raised concerns very early on with the product being approved for human consumption.
He did not. I don't think you read that article very closely.
"It looks like pink slime. That is what I said." Asked if he and his family still eat hamburgers, Zirnstein sighed. "The labels aren't clear, so we don't eat it. That's the thing," he said. "It isn't freaking labeled."
He never said it wasn't fit for human consumption, because it was and is. He just thought it was gross. His issue, which is a reasonable criticism, is that the product was being sold as plain ground beef despite having undergone additional processing.
I'm sorry if my tone is very absolute, but that's because this is a very clear-cut, black and white issue. Ammonium hydroxide is a GRAS chemical which is harmless to put on meat and renders it safe for consumption. You may want to not eat overly-processed beef, and you may rightly argue you have a right to know, but any health or safety concerns are absolutely specious.
However my position has simply been that the response to pink slime was not entirely irrational / hysterical, considering it originated in the private communication of a Government Microbiologist.
I'd also refute your assertion that any health or safety concerns are absolutely specious. It's a very low-quality meat product that is otherwise not fit for human consumption, so on an industrial scale any rational consumer could see that there are potential negative health consequences from some failure in the production line. Approved industrial procedures like feeding cows MBM have triggered BSE in the past, so a natural wariness is entirely reasonable and rational.
The emotional response might certainly outweigh the actual risk, but some of the responses in this thread seem to cast concern / opposition in the same light as tribal people scared that photographs steal souls.
I'm not saying that's not worthy of concern-- of course, it is. It's just the hysteria surrounding this processed food in particular, especially the "ammonia bath" meme which even made its way to HN, that really irritated me (as has probably been obvious :)
I suppose it became the perfect poster child to represent the general issue some groups have with modern food production in general (which I'm partly sympathetic to) but I'd agree that making false claims about food safety helps nobody.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Ammonia-leak-at-ice-cr...
You're making a good point here, but I'd watch out for this weasely use of "nutrition". Fats and sugars are where energy comes from. Food is made of nutrition. (Otherwise we call it fiber... or Olestra.)
What you mean, I think, is that these foods are designed for their macronutrient content, with a poor selection of micronutrients[0], which could lead to a deficiency if it were all you ate. Which is definitely still a big issue with pre-prepared foods, but it's a lot easier to talk about in an intellectually honest way.
[0] Of which salt is one.
1) Pictures of mechanically-separated meat (the pink soft-serve) misattributed as LFTB.
2) Hysteria around the use of ammonia, which people read as "poison" rather than "food-safe antimicrobial agent".
It was a dark day for reasoned discourse.
This would be considered non-sense where I live (Belgium). Could you provide american examples of well-known certified organic food that is often treated with chemicals ?
So for the sake of the conversation: I am curious about american certified organic food known for being often treated with synthetic pesticides.
Note: is there really some confusion with the word "chemicals" in this context ? Wouldn't anybody understand it in its intended meaning (synthetic) or is it an american thing ? I think organic food has even a worse reputation in the US than in WE.
My point was that there isn't necessarily any difference between "synthetic" and natural.
This organic vs. synthetic is largely a media/propaganda driven misconception. What is important is caring for the plants and animals, and not abusing pesticides, fertilizers and medication.
It's the same thing in herbal medicine and health food. Just because a product comes from a plant it isn't necessarily good for you or risk free.
Aside from that, I feel "chemicals" in farming more often refer to fertilizers than pesticides, here in Sweden.
It certainly seems to be a favoured industry angle (esp. in regards to Genetically Modified Organisms): portray opposition as ignorant, anti-progress, unscientifc, luddite etc
Some cursory examination into any of these issues uncovers reasoned, rational, scientific concern behind much opposition.
The 'pink slime' issue originated with a US Department of Agriculture microbiologist who was disgusted that the USDA approved it for human consumption. Hardly 'hysteria grounded in not a whit of logic'.
On the other hand, I have no problem eating lab meat, 'chemically treated' and genetically modified food in principle, depending on the exact chemicals used. For example, I would like to avoid food coated with dangerous pesticides (including if the plant was GM'd to produce the pesticide). Benign pesticides are fine.
I imagine lab meat could be even cleaner and more appetizing than normal meat, once the process has developed enough.
The above is probably that hardest step engineers / programmers have to deal with when doing this type of thing. It comes sometime after the realization that some things human's do are pretty hard.
Losing empathy towards living creatures means reducing empathy for humans as well. A controversial statement, but i am sure one can search that out within themselves.
Interestingly, robots might even reduce the inhumane treatment towards these animals, which is, if I understand correctly, most often the result of cost-saving.
But as a non-vegetarian I'm pretty indifferent to which animals we eat more of.
When did chickens become sentient?
A more interesting, thoughtful piece on this is http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...
The lobster article just starts with the premise that they are sentient, dismisses the complete absence of brain structures that, if we lacked, we would likely be considered braindead, and say 'but they don't like being boiled!' Terribly unconvincing.
The 'Consider the Lobster' article simply investigates the philosophical idea that the ability to suffer is the test for sentience and applies it to lobsters, noting how furiously they attempt to escape pain.
Sentience does not imply that living creatures must have the same biological structures to 'feel, perceive, or be conscious' so your point that they are absent brain structures we have seems irrelevant when considering the definition of the word.
Regardless of how sophisticated Roomba Mk #9999 is in aping the behaviour of living things, it itself is not living and so is not sentient: "Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences."
I'm partial to Roger Penrose' position on AI, and his interpretation of Gödel's incompleteness theorem and its implications for Strong AI.
It is impossible, and therefore futile, to create consciousness through construction of algorithms, no matter how complex, as the mind is non-algorithmic.
I know there was recent HN exasperation on the apparent 'misapplication' of Gödel's theorem to the mind / matter problem, but I"d dispute the implication that it is misapplied through ignorance. It is simply educated disagreement between two opposing philosophical positions.
Many of the issues around materialism / physicalism / computationalism and the mind / matter problem are covered here http://rational-buddhism.blogspot.com. Yes, it's from a Buddhist perspective, but you'll quickly find a lot of articles seem to cover the issues from a computer science perspective.
If the start of that link requires too much setup for your liking, I'd recommend having a look at http://rational-buddhism.blogspot.com/2012/02/church-turing-... first.
Regardless, Penrose himself dismisses the role of any supernatural factors; this leaves us open to the possibility that a non-algorithic but nevertheless synthetic intelligence could be created (and in theory wedged into my roomba). Orch-OR does not require 'meat'.
Your view of reduced empathy is simplistic and wrong.