Cyborg Insects

I came across something related to my previous post about a virtual fly brain computer model. The military has been developing better cyborg insects. Instead of trying to mimic the functioning of an insect by using robotic technology, they are basically co-opting what has already evolved over the course of millions of years. They are using actual bugs fitted with some type of cyborg implants. It seems obvious that a virtual brain of an insect could help this process along. Imagine melding the latest developments in computing power, brain research and nanotechnology to create more sophisticated insect drones. This science fiction idea has been around for quite some time, but reality may be finally catching up to fiction.

There has been a lot of speculation about replicating nanotechnology machines. This technology may be much further away coming to fruition, if they are possible in the way futurist envision them. However nature has already honed insects to be excellent self-replicating machines. So can you improve upon nature and make them even better replicators? Perhaps cyborg insects or insects who had their genetic source code radically modified with the help of a virtual computer model could enable the creation of super insects. Insects can be extremely annoying already. However, how about dealing with these enhanced insects? There could be a rapid shift in the evolution of the earth's ecosystem.

From a societal standpoint, this brings up a lot of ethical issues. It is becoming easier and easier to snoop in on other people. Our privacy is increasingly being eroded away and it looks like little can be done about it. What if you had to worry about whether the tiny insects in your house were actually surreptitiously taking photographs or movies of you? It might be relatively easy to fit an insect with a miniature spy cam. Should society just allow everyone to spy on everyone else? Sort of like a grand sousveillance. Imagine if all of the video from these spy drones could be wirelessly uploaded to the internet and kept on record forever. Most of your life could be on file and known by everyone and anyone who so desired to know it. This would definitely alter the way that people behave.

Also could you create insects that infected their host with some sort of parasite so as to alter the subject's behavior? Toxoplasma gondii is a parasitic protozoa that infects rats and makes them fearless in the face of cats. It alters the rats own brain chemistry, specifically to get it killed so that the parasite can further reproduce in the stomach of a cat. Obviously you might not want to make your enemy fearless, but infecting them with something that could desirably altered their behavior might be a plus. Maybe you could make a parasitical organism that toned down religious ferver in an extremist. One would hope that if someone with malicious intent were to do something of this nature that at the very least they would create a more positive consciousness in their enemy, as opposed to making them overcome with fear, anxiety or paranoia. A totalitarian negative utilitarian could attempt to engineer more happy minds in other people, albeit against their will. Perhaps you could make your enemies fall deeply in love with the rest of humanity so they would never want to hurt anyone ever again.

Some of these are highly speculative scenarios, but science tends to progress fairly rapidly in a few of these domains. So some of these issues may happen sooner than some people realize. Cyborg insects appear to be a reality to a certain extent already. So the future will likely see insects that are even more capable and sophisticated at doing specific tasks than what currently exists.