
RoboRoach: Control a cockroach with a smartphone. - sabalaba
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/backyardbrains/the-roboroach-control-a-living-insect-from-your-sm
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micheljansen
> This is the world's first commercially available cyborg!

No it's not, from the way it's presented, it's more like the world's first
organism-enslavement-for-entertainment-kit. Not that I understand that much
about cockroaches, but it's hard to deny the ethical issues in taking over
control of an otherwise autonomous organism.

At first, I thought this might be some kind of joke or campaign to raise
awareness of these ethical issues, but it seems that they are actually serious
and claim these serve some kind of educational higher purpose:
[http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/Ethical_Issues_Regarding_Usin...](http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/Ethical_Issues_Regarding_Using_Invertebrates_in_Education)

~~~
bayesianhorse
Sorry, I strongly disagree. Cockroaches don't have the emotions or
capabilities to suffer from pain. There is no ethics issue here, except that
anyone doing this experiment with children (as co-experimentators, not as
subjects, stupid!) should make this point about not hurting higher animals
very very clearly and repeatedly.

~~~
shared4you
This article [1] says that cockroaches do experience pain, care for their
offspring, form social hierarchies. They can suffer from stress and can die
from it, even without injury.

Therefore, the ethics issue cannot be ignored.

[1]: [http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/insect-
pain.html](http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/insect-pain.html)

~~~
fiblye
I have a hard time considering cockroach control a major ethical issue when
cockroaches are considered a major pest and are often killed on sight. I don't
see how a few minutes of steering where it goes is substantially worse than
stepping on it. I mean, letting a kid play with cockroaches brings about a
greater understanding than just telling kids that they all need to be killed.
In that way, I'd consider it a good experiment for children akin to catching a
caterpillar and watching it make a cocoon.

Maybe I'm missing something.

~~~
jkn
Ethics is not just about the consequences of an action. Other factors such as
motivations are also important.

I think it is sad but ethically acceptable to kill an ant colony in my house,
yet I don't think it is OK for children to go in the forest and destroy ant
colonies for fun. Or even to dismember one ant for fun, though I may be in a
small minority here.

To take a more extreme example, a majority of people seem to find it ethical
to have drone strikes in Pakistan despite the civilian casualties. They would
certainly not approve of the same drone strikes if they were made for
entertainment, even though the physical consequences on the targets would be
the same.

~~~
verroq
Can I just point out that the examples you gave are invalid?

I won't advocate the destruction of ant colonies in forests because for
ecological reasons, not because of individual ant suffering.

Video footage released from the drone/missile strikes are already being used
for entertainment purposes. When I go onto reddit for videos titled "Hellfire
missile blows up terrorist". I'm actually enjoying a video of a man being
blown up by a Hellfire missile.

I don't think motivations factor into it at all. A death is a death. At the
risk of invoking Freduian psycholoanalysis, it's your cognitive dissonance
that making you feel one is more justified than the other.

> "I can't be the one killing animals, I'm a good person"

~~~
jkn
Of course my examples cannot fit the ethics of everybody, there is no absolute
ethics. That does not make the examples invalid. They went meant to help the
reader understand my point of view, not necessarily share it.

 _I won 't advocate the destruction of ant colonies in forests because for
ecological reasons, not because of individual ant suffering._

To me there are ecological _and_ moral reasons why you should not destroy ant
colonies. I am aware that not everybody agrees.

Regarding the drone strikes: whether videos of the strikes are also used for
entertainment is irrelevant here, as long as it is not part of the motivation
behind performing the strikes.

 _I don 't think motivations factor into it at all. A death is a death._

I don't know what you are getting at here. Are you seriously suggesting that
shooting people for fun is morally equivalent to shooting them for a good
reason?

~~~
verroq
>Are you seriously suggesting that shooting people for fun is morally
equivalent to shooting them for a good reason?

That's an over simplication. I don't quite see the problem with shooting
condemned people for fun (provided they experience more or less the same
amount of suffering).

But I would point out that your example is loaded since I can't seem to see a
senario where extermination of the enemies of the United States would be done
for fun. The only reason we kill those people is because they are enemies. If
they weren't we won't kill them. Whether we enjoy killing them is a different
matter.

The crux of my argument is that it doesn't matter if you enjoyed killing ant
colonies/terrorists. You still achieved the same result (dead
ants/terrorists).

You believe it is morally reprehensible to have _enjoyed_ killing
ants/terrorists. I disagree. Does it matter what the executioner feels when he
decapitates his subjects?

~~~
jkn
All I'm saying is that from a moral point of view, it makes a difference
whether you shoot someone for fun (i.e. they get shot because you wanted the
fun) or for a better reason (e.g. the person was sentenced to death). This is
quite obvious right? I'm just saying your motivations matter from a moral
point of view. Whether you enjoy the killing is irrelevant here. Same for the
ants: I think it is wrong to destroy an ant colony in order to have fun. I
think it is OK to destroy it in order to clean your kitchen. Whether you end
up having fun while cleaning your kitchen is irrelevant. What matters is the
reason why the action was taken.

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akiselev
Does PETA or the Animal Liberation Front care about cockroaches?

I ask this question half in jest, but I kind of have a sick feeling about a
Kickstarter project for invasively implanting neurostimulators into an animal
for people's entertainment[1]. I'm a religious supporter of animal testing for
scientific progress and I've done much worse (mice instead of cockroaches) but
always in an academic setting where everyone took the life of the animal
seriously[2]. Is this just an irrational and emotional response to this being
done outside of an academic setting? I know it's just cockroaches, but...

[1] I mean, how many people will see this and think "Oh I'll teach my kid
neuroscience" instead of "OMG LOOK ITS A CYBORG ROACH"

Edit: [2] Clarification, everyone in the lab I was in respected the life of
the test animals and went quite far sometimes to make sure they were
"comfortable." Although there was usually a somber mood when we had to
euthanize an animal.

~~~
akiselev
I've read some of the comments and the project creators obviously aren't
callous about it. They claim that it actually helps students get a respect for
the cockroach beyond that of a pest. An interesting and great result if true.

I'm going to go ahead and back this despite my ethical concerns. The stuff
coming up in biotech (even stuff that's already here and quite widely
implemented, i.e. in vitro zygote selection) is much scarier from an ethics
standpoint. If this Kickstarter gets more attention it could help drive a very
fruitful discussion.

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bionerd
I don't know if it's just because I'm a biologist but I find this absolutely
disgusting. Every living thing is valuable no matter how it looks or how
"lowly" it is, even goddamn cockroaches.

I'm not saying these kinds of experiments don't happen in "real" science, of
course they do! But to present it like its fun to enslave a creature like that
just for entertainment purposes?

This is the worst possible way to educate people (and especially kids!) about
the beauty of life and respect to nature.

~~~
morphics
My thoughts exactly. Turning a living creature into a plaything and
masquerading it as educational is just sick. It degrades the creature, and it
degrades the science.

~~~
johnchristopher
I shall add it also degrades human beings when doing it "for fun is" disguised
as "a science experiment".

I don't know if it's the case here and I am comfortable seeing this kind of
things done in a classroom.

I hope there are more ways to interact with the electronics than an iphone app
though.

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quaunaut
The ethics of this is actually terrifying.

On the one hand, this is unbelievably cool, and a really interesting way of
getting more people into this kind of technology.

On the other hand, we're controlling a living thing like it's a damned RC car.

~~~
chao-
I agree with you, both in your dismay and wonder, but also pose a question: At
what decreasing level of complexity is something still "living", but no longer
subject to the ethical concerns from this not-exactly-direct control? Insects
are often neural networks of (relatively) straightforward response to stimuli.
Ants for example [1], react to harmful stimuli, but feel no pain in the
debilitating, emotional-trauma-inducing manner that we associate with the word
"pain". And a huge chunk of what governs an ant's life is response to
environment chemicals, particularly pheromones produced by other ants.

Would it be the same level of control thing if we released micro-doses of
known ant hormones in front of them, to prod them into particular actions?
Seems pretty similar, and you could even rig it up so that they release from a
box that sat on the ant's back.

Going lower, protozoa and protophyta are even more obviously "bags of
chemicals that respond to other chemicals in the environment". Would
controlling them via chemical releases be equally an issue?

The real question, it seems, is where do we draw the line and say _" Life on
this side, we don't mess with you. Life on this other side, tough shit we're
going to screw with you nine ways to sunday because it's fu--I mean because
science!"_

[1] I'm not discounting the complexity of an ant's nervous system here, just
pointing it out in relative terms to larger insects and invertebrates.

~~~
alan_cx
None of that matters. Its about motivation. Why one would do something.

Killing cockroaches in a domestic setting, where shock, fear, disgust, etc
take over in an instant, is different from deciding to remote control one for
fun.

Fair enough from a pure research POV, where ethics and welfare are discussed
and addressed, and there is a reasonable research goal, but for some
individual at home, for fun?

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alegen
Showing this article on a board filled with hackers who value free speech and
free will more than anything else is a bad idea. Doesn't matter if it is a
cockroach, a rat, a rabbit or a human being.

I do not agree with giving 10 year-olds this "toy". That cockroach (no matter
how disgusting it may be for some) is a living thing! The ethical aspects of
this project should me taken more seriously and not just "OMG cool gadget buy
it".

~~~
rdouble
Ethically, what is the difference between controlling a cockroach through
direct stimulation and controlling a dog through the usual combination of
behavioral manipulation and physical restraints?

~~~
mtgx
I don't think there is that much of a difference, just as I think it's not
very ethical of us to say that we can't eat dogs because it's unethical, but
chickens are a-okay. They are just another species living on this planet. They
may not be as smart, they also have no play in deciding what's the
intelligence level they need to be at before humans can stop considering them
food.

We, humans, decide what we can and cannot eat. And some of us still hunt
animals just for sport or for their horns and fur, even if they are in that
"higher intelligence" bracket.

But hopefully as our societies evolve, and technologies also evolve to at
least give us a _choice_ between having to eat a chicken, and having to eat
manufactured/replicated meat, we'll learn to give up on these, too.

~~~
akiselev
There really isn't a difference but we're all hypocrites the vast majority of
the time, probably without even knowing it. Food is just too much of a part of
us, we don't want to give it up!

I see it as inevitable that artificial meat replaces wholesale slaughter with
actual animal rights. Let's just admit that most of the world (myself
included) won't stop eating meat until that artificial stuff is here and focus
on the easier topics first.

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hartator
IMHO, I don't understand the comments about ethical stuff about cockroaches.

If it can help some students to get interested in Neuroscience, even only one
student, it's worth it. Maybe this student will make a breakthrough later and
improve lives of dozens. Maybe because of this stupid little project. Anyway
when you still have "human" slavery in the world, you should feel ackward
about thinking of the morality of torturing cockroaches.

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steeve
Came in the comments to share my disgust. I'm glad I'm not the only one
disturbed by this.

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bayesianhorse
There is no ethical question. Cockroaches are neurologically incapable of
suffering from pain, and human compassion can't deal with billions of the
little critters.

That said, you can feel compassion towards roaches you keep as pet. For
example I wouldn't use the species they are using in this video, I'd prefer
bigger ones that also can't procreate in your household beyond their cage...

The roaches survive these experiments. It's less harm than being eaten by
predators...

~~~
michaelgrafl
You either grant other living entities dignity, or you don't.

Says more about you than how those living things perceive the world around
them.

~~~
coldtea
> _You either grant other living entities dignity, or you don 't._

Who said it's a blanket grant? You grant SOME other entities dignity.

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pyvek
I'm surprised to see that so many people are concerned about ethics of
controlling a cockroach. I would like to hear what your opinions are on animal
farming and killing in the food industry. Or even killing a cockroach vs
controlling it.

~~~
chmike
Sure, this is a good question. But are really we talking about the same thing
? An iPhone app to control a cockroach and animal farming to produce food ?
Why an iPhone app, BTW ?

~~~
pyvek
I realize that its not the same thing but I'm raising the other issue because
both of them concern the subject of animal treatments.

And why not an iPhone app? Hackers don't need a reason do something new. A
simple reason I can think of is to demonstrate that this is possible and also
get people interested in the field so that more research is done. I would very
much like to see computers directly connected to human brain and I/O being
done on it in the future.

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disputin
Can these be customised for recording Bilderberg meetings and the like?

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nakedrobot2
I know this works on Cockroaches, but can I connect it to my landlady? There
should be fewer ethical issues as well, as she has no soul and can't feel any
pain.

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gadders
Sounds like it only works for a brief while anyway:

Learning and Memory: After a few minutes the cockroach will stop responding to
the RoboRaoch microstimulation. Why? The brain learns and adapts. That is what
brains are designed to do. You can measure the time to adaptation for various
stimulation frequencies.

TBH, I'd squash a cockroach in a second if I saw one in my kitchen, but this
just feels...wrong.

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chmike
By reading this I can't stop myself to confuse the app user as the cockroach
himself. Consider it seen from Apple perspective: who is controlling who ?

The other question I ask myself is if this is just another one of those
"business" or is this really a contribution to the progress of humanity or
science ?

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muyuu
I think this has a place in research, but commercially?

Also, I wouldn't have kids play with this for a number of reasons.

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Geee
I would love to see the project other way around: extend the cockroaches
capabilities by placing it as a pilot controlling a larger robot/vehicle. Make
artificial antennas/sensors in the vehicle and connect the stimulus to
cockroaches antennas.

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bodo_leer
Copy right infringement?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roboroach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roboroach)
Japanese Robo-Roach from 1997:
[http://www.wireheading.com/roboroach/](http://www.wireheading.com/roboroach/)
Paper behind a pay wall:
[http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-1-4471-15...](http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-1-4471-1580-9_38.pdf)

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donohoe

      "After a few minutes the cockroach will stop 
      responding to the RoboRaoch microstimulation."
    

Ethically dubious and a waste of money

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chris_wot
This sounds, frankly, appalling. I would report them to the RSPCA in
Australia. This sounds like it could make the cockroach suffer.

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venkasub
I am more afraid of a roach dying due to a faulty logic or becoming a "The
Fly" and then flaying me! :)

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jlengrand
Sometimes, I'm afraid of what can be posted on kickstarter :).

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freedomback
This is cruel treatment of a life form and the commercialization of a terrible
and unethical experiment.

You can help report this cruelty to the Humane Society in Huron Valley now by
calling (734)661-3512 or filing an online report:
[http://www.hshv.org/site/PageNavigator/cruelty/report.html#....](http://www.hshv.org/site/PageNavigator/cruelty/report.html#.Ub7lOZy0REw)

