Row over US mobile phone 'cockroach backpack' app

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24455141

by T-A • 13 years ago

63 71 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

thaumasiotes12• 13 years ago

I don't see "rights for cockroaches" picking up mass support.

This is an animal we purposefully kill by the thousands upon thousands just because they're annoying.

muglug• 13 years ago

Killing an animal quickly and efficiently is generally held to be more "humane" than torturing it endlessly (and keeping it alive). It's the reason people put sickly pets down, rather than letting them suffer for months.

visarga2• 13 years ago

torturing it endlessly

That is only the case if it has the concept of suffering. Does it?

thaumasiotes12• 13 years ago

The company PR is quite obviously, as claimed, "disingenuous":

The spokeswoman insisted that the insects are treated humanely and that the backpack - first developed in 2011 - does not harm them.

Boring a hole in the head, and then another hole in the chest, and then clipping the antennae, so you can attach an apparatus which appears to roughly half the size of the roach itself and which exerts major control over its motion, does not approach "humane". Anyone found doing this to humans could very reasonably be lynched.

I'd prefer to see the company own it. To repurpose an argument I first saw on that bastion of philosophical thought cracked.com, "Cockroaches? Fuck 'em." Focus on the scientific potential of remote-controlled cockroaches.

Cockroaches have no rights that man is bound to respect. [1] There are no conceivable benefits to extending them any rights. And I'm not particularly worried that a child who grows up thinking of insects as something to be used or abused as they see fit will mistreat humans. I burned ants with a magnifying glass. It didn't seem to bother anyone. I went on to burn my sister's name into a block of wood as a gift. That's pretty much where things ended.

If a child of mine showed any interest in this sort of thing, I'd be happy to sponsor it.

The article actually made me wonder whether the cockroach lives through installation; I have read that cockroaches "live on" for a period of weeks after being beheaded. It would be really, really cool to get something like this that

- didn't prevent other cockroaches from accepting the bugged one

- didn't block the roach from fitting through gaps it would normally be able to fit through.

- included a highly miniaturized video camera

It's the reason people put sickly pets down, rather than letting them suffer for months.

People are generally (there might be exceptions) more attached to their own pets than they are to other people's cockroaches.

[1] http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/no-rights-which-the-white-man-...

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

I don't think you understand what is done in research labs around the world every day, to mammals, monkeys, even apes.

Intermernet• 13 years ago

Admittedly death by pyrethroids (most insecticides) is basically death by paralysis, and can't be too pleasant either. I usually resort to the bottom of a shoe as it's the fastest way.

DanBC4• 13 years ago

I don't see "rights for cockroaches" picking up mass support.

About 6% of the world population is Buddhist. That's about 350m people who believe cockroaches have rights.

EDIT: mr_luc and thaumasiotes point out my obvious error!

mr_luc• 13 years ago

All 350m?

That's like saying that the billion or so nominal Christians are anti-war, because the canonical Christian writings are clearly anti-war, and particularly 'pure' devotees may preach it, and a few may take a principled stand against it ... but in practice, Christians go to war in large numbers. (Exactly like Buddhists, I might add).

In general, the little Laotian mother trying to keep her house clean is not too concerned about the rights of cockroaches.

Like most religious adherents, most Buddhists essentially pay a class of professional adherents to be devout, so they don't have to be. :)

thaumasiotes12• 13 years ago

You might want to be careful attributing beliefs that are part of Buddhist doctrine to people who avow that they are Buddhists. The overlap (for any religion, not just Buddhism) isn't all that large.

Apocryphon• 13 years ago

Yeah, I'm sorry, this is pretty horrific. The technology behind it is amazing, and the company should be applauded for trying to get children interested in neuroscience, but to hijack a living creature like that? Being squashed by the boot of a shoe seems merciful in comparison to being turned into a Pokémon.

Of course, the above is a response based on emotion, maybe aesthetic grounds. I'm sure a bioethicist can create a better argument against this.

throwaway0094• 13 years ago

This type of cockroach control is pretty par for the course in undergrad anatomy lab sections... I think the only part that seems weird is the gamification of making it a remote control app.

nl2• 13 years ago

Undergrad labs sessions also sometimes involve taking organs from a recently deceased human and dissecting them.

Do that in your kitchen and you get labelled a murderer.

Context is everything.

graeme• 13 years ago

Does anyone have more detail on how this works?

If it's possible to effectively control cockroaches, then the real application would be military and espionage. Just think of the places cockroaches can go, especially if it's possible to further reduce the size of the apparatus and/or camouflage it.

visarga2• 13 years ago

I think it's been done with rats too. Those would be more effective.

Yeah, found the link: Roborats: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/05/0501_020501_...

The horror!

dan1234• 13 years ago

They replace the cockroach's antennae with the electronics, which are used to send fake information to the cockroach's brain.

This was actually featured on HN back when this project was on kickstarter.

gnerd6• 13 years ago

You can find the information on the product website[1] and the instructions[2]. Effectively it just replaces the antennae with electrodes that provide stimulation at 55Hz. So it can just make the cockroach go left or right (assuming it is moving).

There doesn't seem to be any other control, so you (presumably) cannot make the cockroach go forward, backward, up, down, faster or slower. I imaging to get that sort of control they would need to hijack more sense organs or the brain itself.

I guess the human analogy would be like overriding the inner-ear mechanisms (Vestibular system) to control balance (left and right).

[1] https://backyardbrains.com/products/roboroach

[2] http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/RoboRoach_Surgery

jl6• 13 years ago

I feel that using cockroaches like this might be justifiable for the purpose of research, but doing this for what amounts to entertainment is quite dark.

brd529• 13 years ago

Fast forward a ten years. Is it inconceivable a similar technology will work on humans? I've read we already have the reverse - quadriplegic people can control a mouse on a screen by thinking.

If this would work on a human, how would a human attached to one of these perceive the foreign control? I'd imagine these electrodes would reproduce the brain signals that cause our muscles to move, but not alter our consciousness. So we would be aware that our own bodies were moving and responding to someone else's control. Imagine for example, wanting to stop walking but your body keeps on putting one foot in front of the other. Scary to lose control.

I'm not sure how far fetched that is, but it may be an interesting way to think about the morality of this device on roaches. I'm not sure if we know if roaches have a degree of consciousness, or if they operate 100% on instinct. Either way it's hard not to project or imagine some level of consciousness on the roach.

Once you do that, this device seems diabolical.

dmoney• 13 years ago

how would a human attached to one of these perceive the foreign control?

"I have to turn left because it's my job."

thaumasiotes12• 13 years ago

If this would work on a human, how would a human attached to one of these perceive the foreign control? I'd imagine these electrodes would reproduce the brain signals that cause our muscles to move, but not alter our consciousness. So we would be aware that our own bodies were moving and responding to someone else's control. Imagine for example, wanting to stop walking but your body keeps on putting one foot in front of the other. Scary to lose control.

There is existing research relevant to this question. It concerns people whose corpus callosum (the cable connecting the brain's right and left hemispheres) has been cut.

It's possible to present such a person with something (here, a sign with words written on it) that is only visible to one of their eyes, and thus one hemisphere of their brain. It is also possible for such a person to be not consciously aware of what one of their eyes is seeing.

If you present, in the field of view which doesn't have conscious awareness, a sign saying e.g. "please stand up", they will. If you then ask them why they did it, they won't know, but they won't say that; they'll make something up like "I was going to get a Coke".

There is no evidence that they're being deceptive. So it's quite possible that you'd perceive your controlled actions as voluntary. (I'm not taking a position as to whether that's more or less horrifying than perceiving the control.)

collin128• 13 years ago

there was a U of W study posted here a month or two back showing the first human brain to brain interface. Very cool, very creep.

There's a video of one guy playing an FPS without a fire button on his mouse, every time he goes to shoot someone, his connected partner in another wing of the campus presses the fire button on a keyboard. The man with the fire button can't see anything except for a keyboard.

ck22• 13 years ago

Right.... teach kids that torturing animals is okay and desensitize them.

This should end well. We definitely don't have enough mass-killings in society today.

biff2• 13 years ago

People used to worry kids ripping wings off of houseflies weren't right in the head. Budding aerospace engineers cheated of their true potential because no U.S. company had the ingenuity to market $100 wing scissors?

ck22• 13 years ago

Are you saying some kids are born psychopaths? Or that marketeers are?

I've observed both ways, where the kids were far more sane than the parents, and then there are kids that turn out evil despite the best parents.

001sky• 13 years ago

The Michigan-based company has even received emails saying the the backpack - known as Roboroach - "teaches kids to be psychopaths".

Have to say, I think I agree.

chrischen• 13 years ago

How long does the battery last?

rhizome• 13 years ago

This is growth hacking, right? Seems like a nice PR prank by the company.

patrickg_zill• 13 years ago

Amazing, but weird... I am having flashbacks to the cockroach-spy scenes in the movie "Fifth Element".

skuunk1• 13 years ago

Intent is the difference between murder and manslaughter.

If the intent is education, then I condone this, if it is entertainment then I do not.

artificialidiot• 13 years ago

How do I know that the company spews bullshit? Because it mentions Alzheimer. This is the modern trigger word for asking for funding without stating a concrete goal.

beambot3• 13 years ago

I was a researcher on an analogous research project involving dragonflies [1]. Let me explain the difference: all of our research had strict ethical guidelines backed by IRB approvals, the procedures were performed by trained biologists, and the outcome is fundamental neurology research that will be published in Science or Nature. Meanwhile, these cockroach experiments are being performed w/o oversight, by "citizen scientists", with no apparent outcome other than novelty and staving off boredom. BIG difference. I do not approve.

* Thankfully, my work on the dragonfly project was the biotelemetry radio link rather than working with live animals.

[1] http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/06/dragonfly-backpack... => No control of the dragonflies; only neural telemetry.

thaumasiotes12• 13 years ago

You know, there's a school of thought that says IRB approvals prevent a lot of valuable research from happening. This isn't the ground I would have chosen to stand on to defend them.

But beyond that fairly narrow issue, what you're espousing here is an incredibly benighted view. We want "citizen scientists" to be moved by the spirit of inquiry and run the experiments that take their fancy. That's how progress is made. "Novelty and staving off boredom" are a primary motivation for many professional scientists; I still remember the essay I read pointing out that the true scientific mindset was that of an overeager dog who just has to see what's behind that door... and the next one! and the next!

Science-related toys for children have long been felt to promote positive goals, like sparking the interest of a future scientist or just raising awareness of what scientists might do. I see complaints all the time that you can't buy a decent chemistry set anymore. And here you're admitting that exactly this sort of experiment can be published in Nature, but children should keep their hands off? You don't see me crusading to keep Lego Mindstorms in professional hands only. I like it when children share my interests.

Major progress has been made by serendipity and by "citizen scientists" acting without oversight. And, for that matter, by professional scientists acting without oversight. Making the tools more accessible can only get things to happen faster.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

DanBC4• 13 years ago

This is not citizen science. It's just a toy. There's no science taught here. It's just idle noodling. There's nothing about scientific method or repeatability or changing parameters or anything.

You mention the fear that has caused chemistry sets to be reduced, but that's only part of the problem. The other problem is really bad toys being sold as "science" with nothing sciency about them.

beambot3• 13 years ago

I possess the very same scientific mindset and curiosity that you describe, which is why I dedicated my life to science. But I wouldn't let my children insert probes into my cat's brain. Comparing Lego Mindstorms (which I love and endorse) to mutilating a living animal is misguided at best.

Telling me to be "ashamed of myself" is completely ignorant of all the scientific outreach I've done. Don't project.

As for IRB... it's a pain in the ass. But for good reason: standard ethics training. Just go look at some of the shit that has been done in the name of "research" (eg. Stanford prison experiment, Tuskegee experiment, etc). In this case, IRB approval simply says, "we've thought about the processes and the ethics behind these experiments, and we got the review board to agree to our protocols."

EDIT: Would you be OK if the animal was a mouse? cat? dog? person? Where do you draw the line between "scientific exploration" and "cruelty"? That's why universities use IRB -- because even well-intentioned individuals can be blinded.

anigbrowl3• 13 years ago

Oh get over yourself. He's not telling people to avoid doing any kind of science at all, he's saying there are severe ethical problems with aimlessly experimenting on living things.

rflrob• 13 years ago

Let me explain the difference: all of our research had strict ethical guidelines backed by IRB approvals, the procedures were performed by trained biologists...

Maybe your university was different, but at the University of California, no IRB approval is necessary for invertebrates. This is part of what makes fruit flies such attractive model organisms (nb I am a fruit fly biologist).

chanux• 13 years ago

This must be way off topic but did Hitler believe he was doing the right thing?

Edit: I once read about the creators of Roboroach defend the idea. I still didn't agree (It's OK for things I disagree with to exist in the world). Their kickstarter is successful so I guess enough people approve the idea.

Also I liked how the kicstarter page made Roboroach creator's words look like they are Mashable's.

On Roboroach Kickstarter

Mashable - "... the RoboRoach is not a toy, but rather a learning tool."

On Masahble

Gage and Marzullo underline the fact that the RoboRoach is not a toy, but rather a learning tool.

The creators are probably truly passionate about their field of work, want it to be just an educational tool and maybe they are right. But I just can't tell this apart from a PR plaster.

deSouza• 13 years ago

I had never thought I could feel empathy with a cockroach.

rdl3• 13 years ago

This sales campaign has been fairly effective for me; I'll happily pay $99 for this. I boil alive and then eat a close relative of these animals, and other people eat living animals (I just don't like those particular animals). At-home science is at least as defensible.

goldenkey2• 13 years ago

Torture is wrong. Especially prolonged torture in the form of forced servitude. How can you claim any degree of moral backing for this practice when its science lacks merits and it is merely a toy of torture?

rdl3• 13 years ago

It's more that it teaches individuals existing science, creating more interest in science and thus potentially future scientists who will push the bounds of human knowledge, vs. this itself advancing the limits of human knowledge.

I agree with you about torture, but mitigate that with the lower life form status of cockroaches. I wouldn't support the same thing done to rats, octopus, etc., all things being equal (although I'm ok with less intrusive or more beneficial things done to higher life forms; in the limit, final medical testing on monkeys and humans).

DougN72• 13 years ago

Time to risk a hell-ban: I'm genuinely curious how people's views on this being torture and leading to children without empathy, ect coincide with people being against abortion for similar reasons. Does anyone support abortion rights but is against this toy? Or vice versa?

summerdown2• 13 years ago

I support abortion rights but I'm against this toy.

I'd have no problem with a device that kills cockroaches faster. I am, however, against cruelty.

lawtguy• 13 years ago

I support the right of a woman to have an abortion, and I'm also very uncomfortable with this product. In general, I think it's OK to cause pain or kill non-sentient beings as long as it leads to a useful end. Killing a cow so we can eat the meat is fine, but you're not allowed to torture it as you kill it [1].

An abortion is also OK on the same grounds: a fetus before 3 months of gestation is definitely not sentient, and killing it could prevent a great deal of hardship. To be clear, I think abortion is horrible, but it could be the least bad option available.

For this cockroach control toy, it's not clear that it causes the cockroach any pain, but it sure looks like torture. The potentially utility of it looks rather low as well. I can see that it could be useful for learning (and maybe some science as well) but I suspect at lot of people will buy it just for entertainment. That is what makes me very uncomfortable about this device.

[1]: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_slaughter

simon155• 13 years ago

NOTE: As the spokesman has made a public claim the insects are NOT harmed by the product, you are at liberty to take up complaints via trading standards bodies / regulators and sue. I would encourage everyone to do so.

We had a company like that over here - huntingdon life sciences (UK) which as awareness of their activities spread, had regular potests at their offices, preventing workers from working. Once scientists addresses started making public appearance, things very quickly escalated.

Row over US mobile phone 'cockroach backpack' app

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