Cyborg insects

"Using tiny stimulators near their antennae, electrodes implanted in their central nervous systems, or neuromuscular interfaces, researchers have found that it's easier to control insect's brains – and therefore, flight – than to build robotic insects from scratch."

Why not cut out the middle man, and program plants and animals directly?  Cruel or symbiosis?

Unfortunately, this is always going to be a grey area; it can be demonstrated that insects like cockroaches don't necessarily have pain receptors in their main body, so experimenting on them is no more cruel than feeding them to a pet. When you get right down to it, a cockroach is pretty close to a robot.

However, I have never been comfortable with vivisection of any kind so I would object to this.  Additionally, I find it morally unacceptable to exert physical (even remote) control over an autonomous, living entity; they are not toys to be controlled.

Herbie

one part of this is the road that might lead to things like the "Cybermen" of Dr. Who or the "Borg" from StarTrek  ....  I read one of the Dune novels that had a very graphic story where humans were taken and the nerves were stripped out of the flesh and kept alive .... very very creepy stuff....

on the other hand looking at what we have done i wonder if we do need to learn just how different the organic "computers" are from our current ones... but i hope we can do this w/o making us into Borg!

Of course one notion that is often floated out there as a justification for such activities is that if you don't explore that avenue of "ADVANCEMENT", somebody else will...

I feel even less comfortable with the ramifications of that line of thought....

@Dr Herbie: Isn't keeping animals in a cage also a way to exert physical control over them? Dogs on a leash? Where do you draw the line?

In essence, I agree with you. I just want to spice up the discussion and allow you to make your arguments more explicit.

@TommyCarlier: I meant controlling specific body movements, whether that is done by clamping them into an external structure (like a brace so they can't move their head) or whether by implants as the OP mentioned.

Herbie

@TommyCarlier: Dogs on a leash still have control over their thoughts and movement. Physical pain or not, suddenly moving when you didn't decide to move would be terrifying.