So it seems that DARPA is interested in making cyborgs. Animal cyborgs, at least – both flying and swimming ones – to gather intelligence in otherwise hard to reach places.
I have to confess, I find this almost as cool as I find it scary. Cybernetic organisms have only been in the realm of science fiction until now, after all. The insect kind are the ones that scare me more, as they could easily be used for, dare I say it, domestic use. Of course, the U.S. government wouldn’t spy on its own citizens, would it?
Thanks to smb for the links.
2 Comments;
Sounds like a lot of taxpayer dollars to dump into a project which, in all likelihood, will be gobbled up by birds, frogs and other insects before it can return any “actionable intelligence.” The Pentagon would do better to develop a human-born virus that sterilizes men. If dispersed simultaneously in urban areas worldwide, human civilization just might survive another century or two.
Indeed, I hadn’t even thought about the “being gobbled by predators” problem. One also wonders if they plan to use insects available in the US and send them overseas, or will actually go to the trouble of using native species.
Of course, the latter would require having good intelligence on what species are native to a given region…