{"id":583,"date":"2015-11-10T13:16:49","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T18:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/?p=583"},"modified":"2015-11-10T13:25:41","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T18:25:41","slug":"computer-controlled-cockroaches-control-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/11\/computer-controlled-cockroaches-control-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"Computer-Controlled Cockroaches Control Computers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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\u00a0<span style=\"line-height: 24px\">being developed <\/span>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 &#8220;natural&#8221; 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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/2398096\">Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot (2006) &#8211; Garnet Hertz &#8211; High Resolution Video Overview<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/videoupload\">Garnet Hertz<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/weird-news\/robotic-real-life-cockroach-controlled-smartphone-2353561\">Robotic real-life cockroach controlled by smartphone <\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/11\/computer-controlled-cockroaches-control-computers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[34,29,33,31,30,32],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contextualization","tag-augment","tag-cockroach","tag-enhance","tag-machine","tag-robot","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}