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

Missed??

[martingunnarsson]

I don't think /. missed the rat-story, I even recall it was a dupe!

Re:Missed??

[ceejayoz]

Because Google finds stuff, and Slashdot's search engine doesn't.

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.

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..

[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..

[RaboKrabekian]

I'm sorry, but I disagree completely. Call me egomaniacal, but I do think that I, and all other human beings, are more important than mice. Period. End of argument.

If experimenting on animals can save the lives of humans then I'm all for it. Humans are more important.

Re:Hmm..

[sebmol]

The question is not about being born in general. The question is whether the newborn had any influence in the decision that his or her genes be artifically altered.

Interestingly enough, in recent years parents have sued doctors for not diagnosing potential disabilities in their future children. They claimed that, had they known about them, they would probably have aborted. There's a number of stories about this, for example, French court extens.

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..

[mgblst]

Yes, please save the Humans, they are down to 6 Billion in number...

had to be said

[goombah99]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of ratbots...

sorry I tried not saying it, but I couldn't do it

NYTimes: Idea of the year chosen by SlashDot

[dagg]

NYTimes idea of the year chosen by SlashDot members:

Random Login Generator

Re:Creepy? Or Just Pointless?

[kypper]

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.

The brain has no pain receptors. Human patients have been drilled into and probed without any pain whatsoever.

Crying baby translator...

[doormat]

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

Re:Creepy? Or Just Pointless?

[orthogonal]

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.

I'm just happy my angioplasty was "cruelly and pointlessly" tested on dogs before it was tried on me.

But I suppose you forego most drugs and medical procedures so as not to benefit from animal testing.

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?)

Re:Creepy? Or Just Pointless?

[bytesmythe]

ignoring the fact that so much of what's done is useless fluff, much like these remote controlled rats.

While you also ignore a few facts of your own...

1. Animal experiments are very expensive. If there is really a way to do an experiment without animals, it will be done. With animals, you have to keep them comfortable, fed, watered, and pay staff to care for them.
2. All animal experiments have to have special approval. You cannot proceed without it.
3. There are very tight regulations related to the treatment of animals in experiments. Pretty much any procedure more invasive than a simple injection requires anesthesia.
4. No one does these experiments to be cruel or evil. Experiments are done with the intention of learning something important. This is not the laboratory equivalent of a 7 year-old pulling the wings off flies.

Neurological experiments absolutely cannot be performed on anything other than a living biological organism. The idea here isn't just to create remote controlled rats, but to discover how we can advance new technologies related to the brain. Modern probes that can monitor the firing patterns of 4 individual neurons simultaneously? The idea that we can now partially enable the blind to see? Do you think that the experiments required to pull this off were performed on neurons in a petri dish? Of course not, and it wouldn't even be possible. Perhaps one day in the future if, heaven forbid!, you are ever tragically paralyzed in an accident, you will perhaps thank the researchers who come up with remote control technology. I know if it were to happen to me, I'd be very glad to have a way to communicate with my family, or take care of myself instead of being a complete burden.

Especially since there's no critical look at whether full-fledged robots could be developed to perform these functions.

Many researchers devote their time to developing small-scale robotics, but nothing is close to being anywhere near as agile as a biological organism. But again, the research isn't just about controlling rats; it's also a way to figure out how to interface with the brain. Given the paralysis scenario, what good would a robotic "supplemental" body be if you couldn't control the damn thing? When that kind of technology comes about for general use, you'll have researchers, rats, and monkeys to thank for it.

The sad thing is that I'm probably going to be modded down for raising these concerns.

Well, I've got one point left, but I chose to reply instead. Besides, I don't mod down. ;)

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!

Hope your reincarnated as a rat

[bogie]

Then you'll see how fun it is to be injected with cancer and grow tumors the size of a baseball. I wonder if the fact that the scientists aren't laughing at you will be some comfort to you then?

I'm not completely against animal testing, but your in the wrong here trying to brush off the topic of ethics when discussing animal testing. There are ethics involved and they are not "bullshit".

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.