It may require a little, involuntary, help from the insect world:
In 2006 the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) asked America's scientists to submit "innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect-cyborgs" .
We are clearly doomed.
Darpa's call essentially launched a grand science fair, one designed to encourage innovation and tap into the competitive spirit of scientists around the country. The pamphlet outlined one specific application for the robo-bugs –outfitted with chemical sensors, they could be used to detect traces of explosives in remote buildings or caves – and it's easy to imagine other possible tasks for such cyborgs. Insect drones kitted out with video cameras could reveal whether a building is occupied and whether those inside are civilians or enemy combatants, while those with microphones could record sensitive conversations, becoming bugs that literally bugged you.
Maharbiz bristles at the most sinister suggestions, at the media coverage that suggests his beetles are the product of, as he puts it, "some evil government conspiracy". His beetles haven't been sent out into the field yet – they still need some refinement before they're ready for deployment – but if and when they are, Maharbiz says he expects his bugs to be used abroad, in routine military operations, but not to track US citizens. (Of course, some people may find that "equally reprehensible", he acknowledges.)
It is not only insects that are being recruited in the march of progress.
They began by opening up a rat's skull and implanting steel wires in its brain. The wires ran from the brain out through a large hole in the skull, and into a backpack harnessed to the rodent. ("Backpack" seems to be a favourite euphemism among the cyborg-animal crowd.) This rat pack, as it were, contained a suite of electronics, including a microprocessor and a receiver capable of picking up distant signals. Chapin or one of his colleagues could sit 500m away from the rat and use a laptop to transmit a message to the receiver, which relayed the signal to the microprocessor, which sent an electric charge down the wires and into the rat's brain.
During training, the SUNY scientists used an unconventional system of reinforcement. When the rat turned in the correct direction, the researchers used a third wire to send an electrical pulse into what's known as the medial forebrain bundle (MFB), a region of the brain involved in processing pleasure. Studies in humans and other animals have shown that direct activation of the MFB just plain feels good.
Elsewhere researchers are comandeering rat brains in a different way:
Scientists have connected the brains of a pair of animals and allowed them to share sensory information in a major step towards what the researchers call the world's first "organic computer".
Remarkably, the communication between the rats was two-way. If the receiving rat failed at the task, the first rat was not rewarded with a drink, and appeared to change its behaviour to make the task easier for its partner.
"This tells us that we could create a workable network of animal brains distributed in many different locations."
We need not fear that the ethical implications are left unexamined:
Anders Sandberg, who studies the ethics of neurotechnologies at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, said the work was "very important" in helping to understand how brains encode information.
But the implications of the technology and its potential future uses are far broader, said Sandberg. "The main reason we are running the planet is that we are amazingly good at communicating and coordinating. Without that, although we are very smart animals, we would not dominate the planet."
"I don't think there's any risk of supersmart rats from this," he added. "There's a big difference between sharing sensory information and being able to plan. I'm not worried about an imminent invasion of 'rat multiborgs'."
So that's alright: no risk to the 'Future of Humanity' or that we might cease to be 'running the planet'. Indeed, soon we could all be doing it:
Though scientists will continue to build their cyborg animals, Maharbiz says he fully expects that "kids will be able to hack these things, like they wrote code in the Commodore 64 days". We are heading towards a world in which anyone with a little time, money and imagination can commandeer an animal's brain.
