I've lived somewhere with cicadas. If their drone begins to tell me things, I'm checking into a mental hospital for a schizophrenia workup and/or so the massive bug monster doesn't eat me.
Horrors beyond human comprehension, got it. We know that arthropods can meaningfully feel pain. Turning living insects into a biological Floppotron is some Dr. Moreau shit that will earn you, at best, an IgNobel -- and I'm not even sure the IgNobel committee would want to draw positive attention to this kind of work. That said, I'm sure that The Fifth Element style spy cockroaches will start appearing in homes and offices courtesy your local intelligence agency before the decade is out.
> We know that arthropods can meaningfully feel pain
We don't know that. They're capable of detecting and avoiding harmful stimuli, but that doesn't mean they have the subjective experience of pain.
This research also seems quite tame compared to the trillions or quadrillions of insects we torture to death using pesticides when growing our food or protecting our homes.
>They're capable of detecting and avoiding harmful stimuli, but that doesn't mean they have the subjective experience of pain.
This reminds me of "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace. I remember being pretty convinced by his argument that lobsters do indeed feel pain when boiled alive, which was interesting because, as I recall, he argued with simple logic rather than using any biological basis. It may have been as simple as avoiding harm = experiencing pain. I suppose this does not necessarily follow. I'll have to read it again some time.
Another thought: it seems to me not out of the ordinary that with access to our own brains, someone could literally "play them like a fiddle". This suggests that we should start to enact laws that decision making politicians should be required to be air-gapped.
Many seem worried about the safety of the insects. An author responded as mentioned in the article.
> The experiments did not harm the cicadas, co-author Naoto Nishida, now at the University of Tokyo, told New Scientist. "Some of them wanted to run away," he said. "Others were like, 'OK, use my abdomen.'"
This could simply be an alibi to obtain funding or appease an ethics committee (if there is one involved). It's become a meme to label research as a "search and rescue" application to justify working on armed cyberdogs with wall-penetrating radar.
> The experiments did not harm the cicadas, co-author Naoto Nishida, now at the University of Tokyo, told New Scientist. "Some of them wanted to run away," he said. "Others were like, 'OK, use my abdomen.'"
This is hard to believe. They stabbed them with electrodes, surely that does some harm.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 66.7 ms ] threadTorturing insects to make worse-than-MIDI music is gross.
Like, I dunno, record lots of cicada sounds and SIMULATE it?
These researchers should be ashamed of themselves. And it wasn't other-life-saving reasons, but shitty music.
> with the idea that cyborg cicadas might one day be used to transmit warning messages during emergencies
Papers are just there to get tenure and graduate.
Most of academia isn't after real science anymore.
In other words, if you see insects with electrodes that are moving towards you: RUN!
We don't know that. They're capable of detecting and avoiding harmful stimuli, but that doesn't mean they have the subjective experience of pain.
This research also seems quite tame compared to the trillions or quadrillions of insects we torture to death using pesticides when growing our food or protecting our homes.
This reminds me of "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace. I remember being pretty convinced by his argument that lobsters do indeed feel pain when boiled alive, which was interesting because, as I recall, he argued with simple logic rather than using any biological basis. It may have been as simple as avoiding harm = experiencing pain. I suppose this does not necessarily follow. I'll have to read it again some time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p49K0L2fSig
> The experiments did not harm the cicadas, co-author Naoto Nishida, now at the University of Tokyo, told New Scientist. "Some of them wanted to run away," he said. "Others were like, 'OK, use my abdomen.'"
https://xkcd.com/2128
This is hard to believe. They stabbed them with electrodes, surely that does some harm.