
Teaching Rats to Drive Tiny Cars - tosh
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2220721-scientists-have-trained-rats-to-drive-tiny-cars-to-collect-food/
======
hyperpallium
The story is not rats driving cars. This story is not that rats in enriched
environments acquire driving skills more quickly.

The story is that learning to drive _relaxes_ rats.

~~~
intenex
"Just like us humans, learning to drive and navigate seemed to have a relaxing
effect on the rats. In a control experiment, they found rats had higher levels
of cortisol when being driven around in remote-controlled cars than when they
were allowed to steer themselves."

From the futurism post [https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-rats-drive-
tiny-car...](https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-rats-drive-tiny-cars)

Seems like a terrible control imo for me to say driving intrinsically has a
relaxing effect. A better control would be rats doing nothing vs rats driving
and seeing if the rats doing nothing were more stressed than the driving rats,
meaning the driving rats were actually lowering their baseline stress.

In this experiment the control of being a passenger in a terrifying vehicle
moving all by itself with no autonomy or control over the situation can quite
likely be the thing causing elevated stress, rather than rats driving
depressing levels of stress. Imagine if someone suddenly strapped you into a
bubble that started moving by itself and you have no idea why this is
happening, no control over the situation, or where you're going or what's
going to happen to you. Stressful af. Hell, people get stressed just being in
the passenger seat watching someone else drive.

The vast majority of people prefer having autonomy and control over their own
motion vs being helplessly navigated by someone else you don't know/trust with
zero context and no idea what's going on. A little misleading if this reflects
the actual study.

~~~
htfu
That’s a different thing, the actual control was as you describe (measuring
stress markers over time). The thing mentioned appear to be an attempt to
confirm some previous study's finding about self-sufficiency, which is pretty
much related to what you say about autonomy and control.

Never assume bad science when bad journalism would suffice.

~~~
gisely
And never assume bad journalism when you’re reading comments on HN where most
of the commentators haven’t read the article they are commenting on.

------
pubby
Video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINEwuxbI-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINEwuxbI-E)

~~~
dmcdm
Not gonna lie, pretty much the only reason I clicked the article was to see a
video of rats driving tiny cars.

~~~
cushychicken
I, too, prefer the silly video to the underlying scientific premise.

~~~
LanceH
I watch the video and see the next generation of competitors who will be
beating me at rocket league.

------
fouc
Scaling that up to rats driving your "self-driving" car, I don't think I'd
feel safe with less than 5 rats and a consensus mechanism in-place.

Perhaps some of these rats could even be replaced with sensors and Machine
Learning. Just imagine the possibilities

~~~
kwhitefoot
If the rats are able to communicate with each other then I think you might
find the consensus would not necessarily be in your favour.

What happens if you get allocated five 'teenage' rats who just love pushing
your Tesla to its limits! I mean it's scary enough when it's just me and the
Autopilot on the autobahn at 240 km/h.

------
mattkevan
Why bother with all that trouble of teaching computers to drive by themselves,
when you could just get some rats instead?

I would love to see fleets of rat-piloted quadcopters delivering parcels, or
to grab a ride in a rat-taxi.

Plus, considering you’re never more than 6 feet away from a rat, the
convenience would be off the charts.

~~~
whylo
B.F. Skinner trained pigeons to pilot bombs during World War II:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon)

~~~
pattisapu
The ancient Egyptians trained baboons to wait tables.

Source: Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts

~~~
starvingbear
I'm guessing just one incident was the end of that idea

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emmelaich
A better link imho: An article with links to the original papers ..
[https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-rats-drive-tiny-
car...](https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-rats-drive-tiny-car..).

posted to earlier submission
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21340128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21340128)

~~~
tosh
ty! fixed url for futurism article:

[https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-rats-drive-tiny-
car...](https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-rats-drive-tiny-cars)

~~~
tosh
paper:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016643281...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432819311763#)!

------
julienfr112
Maybe Uber can train rats to drive around clients ?
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247303](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247303)

------
Iv
I remember a short-story where a cat learns to pilot a customized glider. It
has always made me wonder about the plausibility of it. Were I not allergic to
cat, I would probably have built a customized controller for a roomba and see
if they are interested in learning to drive it.

I really wonder how far animals can in tool usage if we were to build custom-
designed ones for them.

~~~
eru
[https://www.gwern.net/Cat-Sense](https://www.gwern.net/Cat-Sense) suggests
that cats wouldn't really be the right pilot. Dogs would be much easier to
train.

~~~
Iv
You can easily order dogs. For cats, you have to make the task fun and in
their interest.

~~~
eru
Please see the linked article. There's more than that.

------
pramsky
Is this funded by rideshare companies so they can pay their drivers literal
peanuts ?

~~~
eru
You joke, but do have a look at
[https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/10/california-
wants-...](https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/10/california-wants-more-
monopsony-in.html) and [https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-
wages-in...](https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-wages-in-
free-economy.html)

Summary: Uber couldn't pay more, even if they wanted to.

------
actaeon169
I really feel like we should be teaching them how to ride little bicycles or
take public transportation instead.

------
interfixus
Not really surprising. From what I have seen of rats, they are _very_ good at
spatial perception and physical manipulation of their environment, where they
easily outperform most cats and dogs I have had the pleasure of knowing. A
smart rat clearly enjoys exploration and challenge, and likes to be in control
- it would appear more unexpected if these joyrides _didn 't_ relax them.

------
kylepdm
Shoo-in for the Ig Nobel

------
bredren
If this interests you, you may want to read Robert Sullivan’s _Rats:
Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted
Inhabitants_.

It is all about rats and made me much more appreciative of them. Now when I
see one I think about what it’s doing and why.

The book also has some interesting stuff about US history.

------
grabball
There are no videos of rats driving tiny cars in the article :(

~~~
kwhitefoot
pubby posted this link
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINEwuxbI-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINEwuxbI-E)
elsewhere in the thread.

------
newnewpdro
AMP-free URL that actually works without javascript:

[https://www.iflscience.com/brain/teaching-rats-to-drive-
tiny...](https://www.iflscience.com/brain/teaching-rats-to-drive-tiny-cars-
helps-them-relax-scientists-discover-/)

sigh.

~~~
com2kid
The AMP link loads faster, the page is easier to read, and there aren't any
ads.

I'll take the AMP link this time around!

~~~
newnewpdro
Using noscript makes most sites faster and ad-free, all while getting rid of
more untrusted code running in the browser.

I'll take the AMP-free web thank you very much.

------
henearkr
Wow! Let's train them a little bit more then put them in Formula-E race cars
on a circuit :D

~~~
noonespecial
Forget that. I'd pay to see rat drone racing. Especially if it turned out that
practiced rats flying local could often beat humans flying remote.

------
mellosouls
... _Helps Them Relax, Scientists Discover_

"Article was about more mundane stress relief experiment than title led me to
believe" grumbled one HN reader. "I felt cheated."

------
leovander
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Rat_Things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Rat_Things)

------
m23khan
This is pretty cool. Reminds me of a movie I saw in early 1990s as a kid where
there are rats who drive toy cars. If only I could remember the name!

~~~
GGfpc
Stuart Little?

~~~
m23khan
ah, that is a nice movie but no, this is from early 1990s (or maybe late
1980s). The premise was kinda similar to Stuart Little but I remember there
were multiple mice who were able to talk to each other, some toy car driving
scene and a boy who perhaps owned them.

------
14
I see a lot of comments joking about rats driving Tesla's and maybe Uber could
use them, obviously not but are there any real world application where this
could possible be useful? The one I came up with was rats in a crop driving
little solar powered 4x4 machines around pulling out weeds. Any other thoughts
on how these could realistically be used?

------
kwhitefoot
The researchers should set up a company making the vehicles for sale. In
various size perhaps for different animals.

------
seba_dos1
I have a driving licence, but I don't drive and haven't for years. It's way
too stressful, being responsible for a high-speed machine and all the lifes of
people passing by, not even speaking about my own or passenger's. I can relax
in a train, but definitely not in a car ;p

~~~
akvadrako
There was no traffic or pedestrians in the videos.

------
kazinator
While you struggle there with that computer, I'm naked, clueless and feeling
good driving my tiny car!

[https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-01-29](https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-01-29)

Wow, how can that soon be 26 years old ...

------
tempodox
That's what I'd call disruptive technology. Imaginative even. I'd bet the
dumbest flea on one of those rats is still way smarter than the gaudiest most
over-hyped “AI” our professional snake-oil salesmen could throw at us.

------
sfgweilr4f
Teaching ants to drive would likely produce less congestion. Probably other
risks might come into play.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21340583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21340583)

------
tosh
video:
[https://twitter.com/iflscience/status/1187008909246115841?s=...](https://twitter.com/iflscience/status/1187008909246115841?s=21)

------
JoeAltmaier
No Video in the article?!

Here it is: (YouTube with obligatory ads):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYErLcG6aCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYErLcG6aCQ)

------
musicale
Sure, but driving is easy. We teach 15 year olds to drive.

Color me impressed once the rats learn counter-steering, drifting, and
parallel parking.

------
eyegor
Gotta love the devotion to the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by the authors
here. Also this is super cool.

------
arnaudsm
To make this work at all, you have to carefully tune your learning rat \-
@fchollet

------
magicbuzz
It’s a rat race :-b

~~~
tosh
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=AmkMEoVb6rA](https://youtube.com/watch?v=AmkMEoVb6rA)

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le_didil
people should ditch their SUVs and get an ROV (Rodent Operated Vehicle as
described in the article)

------
Tistel
now try simulating spending 2 hours a day commuting and see if their stress
level is affected.

------
samwhiteUK
"Teaching Rats To Drive Tiny Cars Helps Them Relax, Scientists Discover"

Yes, but the rats might be thoroughly stressed out

------
jonplackett
But WHERE IS THE VIDEO?

~~~
kwhitefoot
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINEwuxbI-E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DINEwuxbI-E)

~~~
jonplackett
THANK YOU!

------
dang
Url changed from [https://www.iflscience.com/brain/teaching-rats-to-drive-
tiny...](https://www.iflscience.com/brain/teaching-rats-to-drive-tiny-cars-
helps-them-relax-scientists-discover-/amp.html), which points to this.

------
mitchtbaum
let them take a selfie

