My investigation of how technology and biology are becoming intertwined led me to realize an unexpected dichotomy. In the year 2015, there are technologies being developed to hack into cockroach brains and control their movement, while at the same time there are robotic vehicles being developed to be controlled by cockroaches. At face value, there seems to a pretty simple contradiction of purpose here. If engineers value cockroach movement enough to design expensive machines with customized interfaces for the bugs to steer, why bother to develop a technology that specifically overrides that natural neurological steering processes that scientists found so interesting? This simple question reveals a complex conflict of interests that goes beyond cockroaches. In fact, the aforementioned experiments reflect a uniquely human dilemma: as technology becomes superior to biological platforms, will we wield technology to augment and enhance our “natural” experience (cockroach drives technology), or will we redefine what it means to be human by changing biology itself, producing something entirely different(technology drives roboroach)? We are no longer decades away from having cyborgs and genetically engineered people walk among us, but that doesn’t mean humanity has come to terms with the real potential technology has to amend the landscape of life forever. The relatively trivial issue of chronic cell phone use has generated just as much controversy as the genetic modification of the food that we eat, as both are often deemed unhealthy or unnatural. The upcoming battles regarding the role of new and increasingly radical technologies will be much more profound as we consolidate how we use technology with what it means to be human.
Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot (2006) – Garnet Hertz – High Resolution Video Overview from Garnet Hertz on Vimeo.
Robotic real-life cockroach controlled by smartphone
I am very intrigued by the robotic cockroach idea that has become reality and I am glad that you brought up the question of why would we then develop a control for the “neurological steering process” that the scientists were so intrigued with in the first place but I wonder that once it is applied it can extend the abilities of that process, almost like the idea of the “limitless” pill that opens up parts of our brain we normally do not use. If by using this control we can somehow tap into sources of control and knowledge that we could not before, should we allow it to continue on to affect humans?