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Scientists for the first time have managed to remotely direct the movements of rats by using implanted electrodes to control their behavior -- in effect transforming living animals into robots.

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[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

However, the problem with this is then you'd have to build a mobile, remote controlled TV. Although I'm sure this would be a beneficial thing to society in itself (think of the marketing opportunities!) I'm not sure that TV mobility would be as much as the rats and would limit the scope of any applications of this technology.

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Okay, someone has to say it, so obviously it has fallen to me. This is truly sick. Sick sick sick sick.

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Sententious: I actually wasn't labelling the morbid humour posts in this thread sick - although I guess in a way, they kind of are - because I chuckled when I read them. I was labelling the technology itself sick. Sometimes, when you're faced with such a scary prospect as making flesh and blood creatures into robots, it's hard NOT to just laugh at the sheer wonder of human beings becoming so...I don't know. Presuming to be omniscient, I guess. And like Slick was saying above, in a joking way, for what? So we can be entertained by it?

I, however, will stick up for the experimenters. Taking the concept to the extreme, yes, it is a bit disconcerting. But if you look at the mechanics of control, I'd agree that this really isn't much different then, say, controlling a horse. The electrode stimulation is analogous to the harness, the remote signals like the reins.
The actual Nature piece (you may have to login to the site... it's free, or at least temporarily free) has this to say:

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Our rats were easily guided through pipes and across elevated runways and ledges, and could be instructed to climb, or jump from, any surface that offered sufficient purchase (such as trees). We were also able to guide rats in systematically exploring large, collapsed piles of concrete rubble, and to direct them through environments that they would normally avoid, such as brightly lit, open arenas.

Our results show that 'virtual' learning, involving direct stimulation of the central substrates of cues and rewards, can effectively expand the scope of the operant method. Its chief benefit is its ability to dissociate explicit schedule variables such as cues and rewards from the physical variables that are normally associated with their delivery, freeing learning from the mechanical and parametric constraints that are imposed by particular physical settings. MFB (medial forebrain bundle) reward stimulation is relatively non-satiating, and animals need not initiate consummatory behaviours to obtain such rewards. As virtual cues and rewards are perceived within a body-centred frame of reference, they may facilitate learning independently of the external environment. It may also be possible to increase the 'bandwidth' of conditionable information by stimulating multiple brain sites, thereby increasing the variety of reactions that can be elicited.

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And while people might beat their dogs and mistreat animals, these experimenters might take care of the rats and respect them for the little critters they are.

Wouldn't you want to see the gently twitching nose of a rat if you buried under a ton of rubble?

In the end, is there much difference between stimulating a reward center in the brain and gently petting an animal?

There is still a difference between training "service animals" and creating rat robots. First of all, police dogs AREN'T just seen as means to an end. They are given a rank, a name, a title, and they become a partner to their human police officer. In fact, the dog itself is considered an officer.

There is a real relationship between the dog and the master. The dog is not there to take the fall for the master. The dog would not be considered an "acceptable sacrifice" in any situation - every effort would be made to make sure that dog was kept safe. There is even a movement to make a monument to fallen police dogs.

So I disagree. They are not considered "tools" or "robots". Their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses are taken into account. They are loved with true emotion by their human police partner. There is a true bond there. They are no more a "tool" for the police department than any of the other human police officers.

Of course, if you were to go as far as to say that humans are used as "tools" when they are labouring, then you could take the argument to the conclusion that to the police station, the dog is as much a tool as a hammer, and so is the human police officer. But except for a purely philosophical debate, I don't think most people would be willing to see a person as merely a tool of anything.

If your argument is that a person has a life outside their labour, well, so do animals. When the scientist goes home for the night, the rat eats, sleeps, walks around, and does its own thing as much as it can given the surroundings. A police dog goes home, sleeps next to the fireplace, plays with the kids, licks his privates, and basically has a life outside his "working" life.

So I still disagree with you.

[ May 05, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Why don't we plant a few electrodes in our politicians heads? When they make the wrong decision a bit of a zap might put them on the right track.

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Now imagine if we had a Chretien wired up so he got reward stimulation based on a similar model as this aircraft control. We all have little boxes where we can press "doing good!" or "you jackass!" at any particular time of the day. Watch as all of Canada trains it's Prime Minister to do what most people want. Now that is direct democracy!

Some other articles on roborat:

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Source:The researchers first threaded three wires as narrow as human hairs into each rats brain and attached them to a microprocessor slung on the rats back like a backpack. Two wires served to deliver electrical cues—one each to the brain cells associated with the rats left and right whiskers, respectively. A third wire doled out rewards to a separate area of the brain.

Then a member of the scientific team, using a laptop computer, remotely stimulated the microprocessor to send an electrical signal through one cue wire or the other. The rat "felt" a touch to the corresponding set of whiskers, as though it had come in contact with an obstacle.
If the rat responded by turning in the desired direction, the controller encouraged the animal with a brief electrical pulse to its brain's reward center. The rat would feel a sensation of pleasure.

This pattern of stimulus and response is parallel to the way that a shepherd might train his sheepdog, Talwar said, "except the rat will not work for love." Instead of offering an encouraging scratch behind the ears, Talwar's technique creates a world of "virtual cue and virtual reward" in which the rat learns to respond to the remote orders rather than rely on its own instincts, he said. The animals demonstrated an impressive ability to learn and remember how to interpret remote commands.

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Source:Talwar's team train the wired-up rats to turn left or right in a maze according to the artificial whisker stimuli. A jolt to the MFB rewards the rats for correct behaviour. After a week's training the rats turn on cue without reward.

Thereafter frequent pleasure pulses motivate trained rats to navigate through virtually any environment. Extra pulses spur them on to challenges like climbing or jumping.

There is a limit to what the animals can be made to do: instinct tempers their eagerness for reward. For example, even continuous MFB stimulation cannot make a rat jump from a dangerous height.

Manipulating animal's minds, especially for dangerous missions, raises ethical questions. "Debate is certainly needed," admits Talwar. But he points out that the rats live as long as normal, and when not wearing mind-altering backpacks they are just like any other rats. "They're not zombies, they work with their instincts," he says.

In a way, ratbots are an extension of classical behavioural experiments in which animals learn to perform tasks in return for food, say. It's just that the reward for leaning, as far as a ratbot is concerned, comes from within. This virtual learning could make ratbots a new model for studying animal behaviour.

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Ratbots. Is there anything those scientist guys can't do?

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Talwar acknowledged that some people—including himself—feel somewhat uncomfortable with the notion that animals can be remotely controlled. "The idea sounds a little creepy," he admitted.

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Stay out of my labs!

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Hey there Sanctimonious Slim, did you stop to consider the sick things that people do because of TV?

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Just to shed some light on this idea, maybe we could explore some of the opinions on it.

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I don't think people really do something extremly violent because they saw it on tv. I think that they are going to do something anyway and perhaps in some cases the method they use is one they saw on tv. But the basis of their insanity is there well before they get the idea of how to do something.

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Tell me, are Latvarian KillBots strictly based on AI, or do you use some sort of hybrid animal/cyber-mind?

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The kill-bots are strictly mechanical, but the Latverian Research Council has lots of different projects on the go . . .

Uh, I mean . . .

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Apparently incidences (sic) of kids fighting are greatly increased after watching Power Rangers, or so I've heard.

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Power Rangers?

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I was talking about the News!

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incidences (sic)

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Anyway, Power Rangers, the news, it's all the same shit. Immature people instinctively reacting to what they see on TV, that is what it's about.

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Stay out of my labs!!!!

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"incidences" is one of those non-words, like "irregardless" and "priorize," that has crept into common usage, so you're excused.

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Hey, use your nuance glove if you want to catch my drift.

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If I think you missed my point, I will suitably hit it you with it. But because it is my exclusive property, it absolves me of trying to understand anything another person might be trying to say, how clever it might be.

But having said that... Uh, what word should I have used? "Examples"? "Instances"?

PS: But, yeah, you're statement is funny nonetheless. I did catch it (but I'm more of a designated hitter if anything, harhar).

[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

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you're statement

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You did that on purpose, didn't you?

*tying up his hair in a schoolmarmish bun*

Either "incidents" or "instances," but don't meld them together.

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You did that on purpose, didn't you?

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Haha, that is why I can't get all excited correcting someone's grammar or language. Some people may notice that I actually fix spelling mistakes when I quote posters (if my software picks it up), even twits who I think are the scum of the earth. Like I said, I can't spell, I am never grammatically correct, so I'm not going try some sophomoric stunt to undermine other people in my posts, Words are technicalities, it's the thought that counts. However, I don't mind when people correct me. I am here to learn, after all. I don't do much thinking, or writing, in my job.

There is a part of me that reasons that everyone should be able to spell any way he or she pleases. Nevertheless, when it comes down to it I follow (yes, follow) the dictates of the OED.

Try reading Malory or Chaucer some time. You will find that there are variations in the spelling of some words, often on the same page. Standardized spelling is in some respects the product of industrialization. The invention of the printing press ended the anarchy of acceptable random spelling.

It's late now, and my eyes are going buggy, so I am probably posting something full of ironical errors.

[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: Arch Stanton ]