December 15, 2002
Remote-Controlled Rats
By BRUCE STERLING
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/magazine/15REMO.html
The grand 21st-century movement toward industrialized biology took a rapid scurry forward this year with the invention of a remote-controlled rodent.
The ''ratbot,'' created at the State University of New York's Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, is a lab rat wearing a tiny radio-controlled backpack, operated by a human working at a remote laptop computer. Three wires connect the backpack to the rat's brain. One sends a signal that makes the rat turn left, the other makes it turn right and the third stimulates the ''medial forebrain bundle,'' causing sensations of intense pleasure to the rat. By firing the pleasure button whenever the rat turns or moves in the desired direction, the human operator can direct the ratbot to scurry through tight pipes, climb trees, even master its instinctive fear and stroll boldly through brightly lighted open spaces -- lured on by this overwhelming electronic bliss.
The SUNY researchers play up the noble idea that cheap, disposable rats might carry out the dangerous activities of expensively trained rescue dogs. Outfitted with tiny video cameras, ratbots might search for earthquake victims trapped under rubble, for instance. But it is just as easy to envision many vastly more sinister applications of ratbots in the fields of espionage and warfare. A rat that will go where it is told is an ideal delivery system for biological weapons.
And recall: rats are traditional lab specimens because most anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human. How many people would seek out this ''botting'' process just for the ecstatic sense of pleasurable surrender to another's commanding will? To be botted, with or without one's consent, may turn out to be one of the age's darkest and creepiest native vices.
Remote-Controlled Rats
By BRUCE STERLING
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/magazine/15REMO.html
The grand 21st-century movement toward industrialized biology took a rapid scurry forward this year with the invention of a remote-controlled rodent.
The ''ratbot,'' created at the State University of New York's Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, is a lab rat wearing a tiny radio-controlled backpack, operated by a human working at a remote laptop computer. Three wires connect the backpack to the rat's brain. One sends a signal that makes the rat turn left, the other makes it turn right and the third stimulates the ''medial forebrain bundle,'' causing sensations of intense pleasure to the rat. By firing the pleasure button whenever the rat turns or moves in the desired direction, the human operator can direct the ratbot to scurry through tight pipes, climb trees, even master its instinctive fear and stroll boldly through brightly lighted open spaces -- lured on by this overwhelming electronic bliss.
The SUNY researchers play up the noble idea that cheap, disposable rats might carry out the dangerous activities of expensively trained rescue dogs. Outfitted with tiny video cameras, ratbots might search for earthquake victims trapped under rubble, for instance. But it is just as easy to envision many vastly more sinister applications of ratbots in the fields of espionage and warfare. A rat that will go where it is told is an ideal delivery system for biological weapons.
And recall: rats are traditional lab specimens because most anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human. How many people would seek out this ''botting'' process just for the ecstatic sense of pleasurable surrender to another's commanding will? To be botted, with or without one's consent, may turn out to be one of the age's darkest and creepiest native vices.