NYTimes Year in Ideas

jonbrewer writes "The New York Times is back again with their "Year in Ideas" and one that Slashdot missed this year was the RatBot. As featured in the BBC and Business 2.0 earlier this year, these critters are trained to navigate mazes based on remote stimuli. Ethical? Doubtful. Cool? Yes."

Comments

Hmm..

[RaboKrabekian]

Ethical? Doubtful. Cool? Yes.

How is this any more unethical than the thousands of other experiments performed on rats and mice? Would it be unethical to remote control a human in this manner? Of course. Would it be unethical to perform any number of experiments on a human? Yes - which is why we do it on rats and mice.

Re:Hmm..

[kypper]

I think we need to get past this 'ethical' bullshit on animals. So long as they aren't screaming in absolute agony and we're sitting there laughing at it, of course... but this image of cruel scientists performing sadistic acts on animals, then doing the actual research to ensure funding remains intact is crap. Psychologists and Biologists, in most animal-testing cases, are simply trying to test hypotheses in order to improve our understanding of the world around us. Is that so fucking hard to understand??

Re:Hmm..

[sebmol]

Actually, any experiments with rats and mice are unethical in my book. The momeny we employ them to our gain, we assume the arrogance to believe that we are more important than those creatures. On the other hand, I don't have a problem with human testing if the subject/participant volunteered under free will to be experimented with. I don't see how that could be unethical.

Re:Hmm..

[sebmol]

It is not hard to understand at all. But the question remains: who are we to decide that we can employ other animals for our own purpose, specifically so when it comes to testing and experimentation?

Re:Hmm..

[kypper]

I think that about the time we started tweaking genes and 'playing god' as so many people like to put it, that's when it became ethical. If we're going to tweak genes and alter brain functions/chemicals (and we are, no matter how many people protest), then SOMETHING needs to be the focus of the experiments. Personally, I think we should just do the experiments on the current Whitehouse administration, but that's just me.

Re:Hmm..

[sebmol]

Genetic experimentation can rarely be ethical. The problem is that the outcome of genetic experimentation is supposed to be an altered new lifeform, which never got a chance to make the decision whether he/she/it wanted to be altered in the first place. That's where I would see the real ethical dilemma.

As to the White House administration, let's not go there. For all we know, they might already be the outcome of said genetic experiments <g>

Re:Hmm..

[scotch]

Well, cats do fuck with mice and other animals with no apparent intention to eat them, and they certainly aren't defending themselves. Sure they don't have formaldehyde, but they still act in ways that meet neither a) nor b) in your post. You probably haven't heard of a lion using a crossbow to hunt antelope, either. The technology you brought up is a bit of a red herring.

Re:Hmm..

[Malor]

Of all the analogies to choose, this was one of the worst. Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse? It is VERY cruel. If cats could understand formaldehyde, I have no doubt whatsoever that they'd gleefully inject a mouse with it... well, except for the fact that it would ruin lunch.

Cruelty is very much a part of nature. A fox will kill every hen in a henhouse just because it can. Wolverines fight just to fight; they are nasty, cruel animals.

We may be the only animal that can experiment on others... but we appear also to be the only animal that can feel guilty about it afterward.

By the logic of your argument, because animals don't feel guilty, we shouldn't either.

Creepy? Or Just Pointless?

[Schlemphfer]

Interesting how the press seems to dismiss the cruelty issue by reporting the researcher's point of view at face value. Here's the last sentence from the National Geographic article:

And, Talwar said, "there is no cruelty" involved in operating robo-rats because the animals are never intentionally killed or harmed.

And here's an excerpt from the BBC piece:

"Our animals were completely happy and treated well and in no sense was there any cruelty involved," he said.

Nope, no cruelty at all. Aside from drilling holes in the rat's skull, attaching wires into his brain, and mounting a control box permanently behind his head.

I think it's a lot of inhumanity for a little gee-whiz. Especially since there's no critical look at whether full-fledged robots could be developed to perform these functions. Yet another example of brutality done to animals with no clear payoff. Surely, research in small-scale robotics is producing, or will soon produce, devices with the mobility and functional characteristics of rats.

The sad thing is that I'm probably going to be modded down for raising these concerns. Time and again, a sizable portion of Slashdot posters seems to stick up for animal research, no matter how cruel and no matter how pointless. Now I'll stand back and give people a chance to post all about lifesaving animal research, ignoring the fact that so much of what's done is useless fluff, much like these remote controlled rats.

Crying baby translator...

[doormat]

I saw that as one of their ideas.... wasnt that a simpsons episode with homer's brother??

Re:America is the future, Europe is the past

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment is not only wildly off topic, but its whole point is made on a few dubious assumptions, e.g. "The resentment Europeans feel reflects the fact that America is the future and Europe is the past." So because the Europeans are worried that a nation of uneducated yokels ruining the world (Kyoto, dropping anti-weeapons testing treaties, rediculous erosion of basic human rights etc) make the USA the future?!

"Its embrace of statism was undeterred by the long years of the Cold War when the then-Soviet Russia threatened to impose Communism on the whole of Europe." There is a strange distrust of any form of culture other than cut-throat capitalism here in the USA it seems. What is /so/ wrong with Communism or Socialism? It 'threatens the American way of life!' - i.e. it threatens our ability to abuse and rip off our fellow nationals, to make huge profits at the expense of our fellow man. What a disaster that would be...

"The locomotive of Europe is the German economy, which has been in a serious mess for more than a decade." Yes, the German economy is not amazing at the moment. No, it is not the 'locomotive' of the EU. Just because we love their BMWs and Mercedes here, doesn't mean that is the only country that makes anything. Both France and Itally have very large car companies (Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat (including Ferarri) etc), as well as strong manufacturing across the whole range of the EU, not to mention a flouirshing IT and Technology industry in the UK.

Your statement, albeit a troll, really is a load of shit. If you are going to troll, at least do an intelligent one that doesn't base its whole argument on some unstable assumptions. Its people like you that make this country look bad to the rest of the world. No wonder the Europeans dislike us when we have oaths such as yourself representing us.

Googling /. doesn't work.

[Raetsel]

There's a simple reason why...

• Google isn't evil.

Meaning, in this case, they obey the /. robots.txt file It seems quite comprehensive, and (as a result) searching Slashdot is very difficult.

(Some time ago I posted a comment ranting about the /. search sucking, that they denied Google via the robots.txt file, and some hopeful solutions... but I can't seem to find it. How's that for irony?)

You Can't Stop The Ratbots

[USC-MBA]

One common theme (aside from terrorism, of course) clearly stands out from among the NYT's long list of ideas. What do all these have in common?

• Botox Parties
• Featherless Chickens
• Ratbots
• Genetically Modified Saliva
• Cooling Atheletes From The Inside Out

The answer is they are all about using technology to enhance or modify biology. There is a human impulse to go above and beyond the constraints of biological limitations. This is because the imagination will always overflow and escape the boundaries of our bones, nerves, and muscle.

This impulse to strive, excel, and improve is at the heart of what makes us human. The striving imperative motivates everything from mountain climbers to astronauts, to the market economy itself. To stifle this urge would be to stunt our very humanity.

As a libertarian I strongly support any efforts by striving, creative individuals to transcend the forces that constrain humanity. "Ratbots" may seem creepy to timid animal rights fundamentalists, but I prefer to see these kinds of experiments as an exciting beginning, as one tiny step on the part of humankind into a new world of freedom and possibility.

Impressive.

[Raetsel]

Wow.

Damn.

Would you look at that.

If I were talking about electronics, I'd call that a 'sneak circuit.' All the subdirectories the /. editors didn't include in the robots.txt file are indexed by Google.

(At least, I figure they overlooked this... give it a few days, then check for an updated exclusion list.)

On the other hand, I still can't seem to dig up my old comment... and not for lack of trying, either. I suggested a donation fund for a Google Search Appliance, archives on CD for /. subscribers so you could grep the database... that kind of thing. If anyone else manages to dig it up, I'd sure like to know how you found it!

Re:Missed??

[invenustus]

At some point, the story of the CIA Spy Cat was also posted. Maybe as part of Quickies? At any rate, searching this site has become impossible.

Implications are severe and unforseen

[mcrbids]

What happens if WalMart (or an "unrelated" corporation) were to put these things into poor, 3rd world natives?

What if by providing just enough food to survive, squalor for sleeping quarters, and no particular pay, but lots of "pushing the pleasure button" they were to get a group of people willing to work for free?

Would it be cruel? You talk to these people, and they are smiling, happy, and working 16 hour days in relatively dangerous conditions, with their "happy button" being pressed anytime their output increases some small amount.

How long before our "free market" makes this a reality? How many people would sign up, knowing that they will be forever "happy"?

How many people are willing to do this using drugs, to get the same effect, despite the risks?

This is not something that's possible, it's inevitable, as there is a clear financial reward. Making it illegal won't prevent it.

Where do we draw the line? As somebody who's frequently rather sure I have the answer, I have to say this one baffles me.

Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore!

Murder rates most interesting

[Goonie]

On my quick browse through, perhaps the most interesting idea was the one on murder rates.

Basically, murder rates have remained essentially static over the past few decades, while other types of crime such as assaults have become more common. Why are murders different?

The hypothesis is that improvements in medical treatment have meant that people who would otherwise have died of injuries are now surviving, and thus the murder rate has gone down. Evidence includes the fact there was a decline in the murder rate in the years after the Vietnam War, where improvements in trauma surgery made their way back into the civilian health system.

I don't know if it's true or not, but it's certainly an interesting, plausible, and quite disturbing idea.