MIT builds swarms of tiny robotic insect drones that can fly 100 times longer than previous designs
MIT builds swarms of tiny robotic insect drones that can fly 100 times longer than previous designs
In the latest video about this by veritasium, he asked the researcher about ethics concern. the researcher insist that they dont care as humanity can decide for itself.
Meanwhile:
The new report also details the extent of MIT’s partnerships with Israeli military contractors like Elbit Systems, which supplies 85 percent of Israel’s killer drones, and Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, that has sent millions of pounds of military goods to Israel since the start of the war on Gaza. The Israeli military also sponsored several of the MIT projects with funds provided by the U.S. Defense Department.
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/16/mit-israel-military-funding-research-gaza/
That researcher is a real life Dr. Hoenikker. Vonnegut is probably shrugging in his grave
-…his mother was completely consumed by robotic bees. So it goes.
MIT also (indirectly) killed Aaron Swartz.
“We are willing to ignore and downplay the ethical concerns as long as the money keeping coming in”
MIT also (indirectly) killed Aaron Swartz.
I'd rather just have bees.
But how can techbros get rich from bees? Bees just make themselves for free then serve the greater good, the little buzzing communists.
Even birds are starting to seem acceptable
oh so you think birds aren't already flying robots? robot bees are just the next step.
/s obviously
I’d rather not have robot bees. I’ve seen hated in the nation (black mirror episode).
The MIT engineers agree. They said something to the effect of "If you could make a robotic bee, it wouldn't replace bees. It would be a terrible idea to try to use them for pollination... Just put that same amount of finding into conservation and researching bees, you would have a much better result."
The new technology could increase crop yields dramatically without harming the environment.
That's a surprisingly benign use case, I was expecting far worse.
Plot twist: The crop is human misery.
Well then fucking harvest me and get it over with
The public use case.
I guess I'm the only one thinking about how it's inevitable that birds and other animals will mistake them for real insects and die from ingesting these things, god knows what kind of toxic materials they're made of but I'm willing to bet it's not safe to eat them
Without a doubt they will have those other use cases in mind too. Mentioning them is just not good for marketing in public.
Dear technology under capitalism... We just want healthcare, housing, etc... We don't fucking need swarms of robot insects.
Just today I was watching this video:
They think there will be more profit in it, especially since bees can't be repurposed as weapons.
bees can’t be repurposed as weapons.
Capitalism will find a way.
https://cherwell.org/2024/10/18/oxford-scientists-microchip-bees-with-smallest-radar-ever/
I've seen this episode of Black Mirror.
Fall into me
And drown inside me
I know you will see
The beauty of me
Also, I've seen this episode of Tom Scott.
Nope, I’m out
It wont be long now before the nanobots exist and the Borg can finally take over. Resistance is futile.
the Borg
Sounds like communism...
How's this for an obscure reference? This reminded me of an episode of Max Headroom in which the wunderkind Bryce invented a robotic fly with a spycam that could be used to literally bug a room. They send it on a mission to uncover an evil plot and everyone is excitedly crowded around the screen and heaping praise on it. Then it manages to sneak into the evil lair where it promptly gets swatted, leaving Bryce shocked and devastated.
They also did this in Spy Kids
Looks like they hovered for 1000 seconds. It was previously stress limited such that the joints would break after just a few seconds. I think they might still be tethered for a power source, I haven't seen any of these micro flapping bots include a battery yet, and they didn't mention that they did.
Bradbury called it in Farahenheit 451.
Canada might need these sooner rather than later.
With the breakdown of democracy and the rule of law in America, the Constitution just became wholly unenforceable and therefore irrelevant. That means that Trump could make good on his fever dream of invading Canada.
And there are many Americans who would jump at the chance to obey his command to slaughter Canadians. With only 40M against America’s 334M - and 0.097M military personnel against America’s 2.1M - it would be absolutely no contest.
Our only way of making such a fascist act of aggression as painful as possible would be with asymmetrical warfare using tiny, hard-to-defeat drones that could act independently and strike without warning. Deploy 10k of these suckers onto a battlefield, and the only survivors would be those within sealed armour or flying at high altitude. Because even an A10 Warthog loitering low over the field can be taken out if it unexpectedly ingests a half-dozen of the explosive buggers.
I think there was an X-Files episode about this.
We all know where this is gonna end...
Surveillance drones everywhere.
Surveillance is the "nice" version of it.
I've low-key started to think the only reason we haven't seen autonomous hunter-killer drones yet is that nobody's willing to break the seal, and I'm scared for what happens when somebody finally does.
My dear stranger, those already exist, and have been used in war to terminate key individuals.
We are living the dream.
Horizon Zero Dawn looking more eminent any day now.
They are definitely super willing to break the seal, just nobody has built a good target ID system yet that won't fire on civilians.
If you just need everyone in a 10 mile radius dead, you could send in the hunter bots, or you could just shell the area with heavy artillery from three countries away. We already have that problem solved. Once we have a reliable target ID system I guarantee you'll start seeing unmanned equipment in war.
Anal
#BugsArentReal
And it sucks, when you think inside Star Wars, such small drones are used only in medical or expensive surveillance and military applications.
But in real life it can really be a swarm of things worse than scarabs in The Mummy.
There is no way these things could spread poison instead of pollen is there?