I DON’T have a problem with creepy-crawlies in general; having killed flies to feed the spiders in my garden as a child I’ve developed something of a love for arachnids and centipedes don’t gross me out either. Lizards are useful to have around the house and every time I’m asked to ‘dispose’ of one at the insistence of She Who Must Be Obeyed, I try and scare it away while sparing its life; even the baby lizards scurrying across the floor get a free pass.

But I draw the line at cockroaches: those disgusting, scuttling, rapidly multiplying scourges with their twitchy antennae and nightmarish ability to grow wings and fly at you like tiny kamikaze pilots from hell. Of all the creatures on this earth, cockroaches are the one species I would shed absolutely no tears for if they went extinct and the real pity is that there is no chance of that happening. Cockroaches are over 300 million years old, having evolved before the present-day continents were formed (which is why they’re absolutely everywhere) and before dinosaurs even existed. Most likely, they’ll be around to dance on our radioactive bones long after we have wiped ourselves out.

So when I learned that Japanese scientists had decided to ‘improve’ cockroaches by implanting machinery onto them my first question was … WHY? Dear God, why would anyone be insane enough to launch a scheme that would make the maddest of mad scientists reconsider? What is wrong with the Japanese? Are Godzilla and wasabi-flavoured KitKat not apocalyptic enough for you guys?

Worse, they’ve chosen the largest of the cockroach family for this ghastly enhancement: the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach which can grow to four inches long and one inch wide, and this is presumably because these are the only cockroaches big enough to carry the electronics and still be able to move. Their lack of wings also reduces obstruction when it comes to implanting the devices.

Cockroaches are set to save lives.

But it turns out that the Japanese haven’t done this because they hate humanity. Quite the contrary, they’ve created cyborg cockroaches to save human lives. Here’s how it works: first, a removable ‘backpack’ containing electronics and an ultrathin solar cell film is glued onto the cockroaches’ back to power the device. Then, a wireless control module is attached to the thorax, which allows researchers to send electrical signals to the cockroaches’ sensory organs, allowing them to control its movements.

As for the why of it, scientists say that these enhanced bugs could be deployed in the rubble of an earthquake to search for survivors, looking for life signs that could be detected through infrared and audio-receiving devices which, once miniaturised, could be mounted on the rescue roaches. Several hundred or even thousand roaches could be coordinated through a mesh programme similar to the ones being used to control swarms of mechanical drones, and would be able to infiltrate cracks and navigate debris that no human or robot could. The technology still has a long way to go, and the initial cyborg backpack was constructed using materials available at Tokyo’s electronic market for around Rs8,000, but its future potential is incredible.

The reason a living creature has been used, as opposed to a swarm of robots, is because it cuts down on energy requirements and thus on the need for bulky and weighty battery packs.

But insects have provided inspiration for robotics engineers for some time now, given that they can process complex actions with a lot less neurological processing power than larger creatures; consider that the human brain contains about 86 billion neurons, while the average honeybee has around a million neurons. This makes the job of AI engineers easier and it’s the reason why we’ll see bug-sized bots in operation long before we see human-level AI exist.

And so, work is being done on tiny robots that can jump, swarm, fly, skim on water and even ‘fold’ their bodies cockroach-style to get through narrow cracks. A prototype ‘robofly’ with flapping wings is already in existence, and ant-inspired ‘tribots’ aim to use ‘hive-mind’ AI to coordinate actions like real-life ants.

There are a lot of benign uses for this technology, such as search-and-rescue missions, monitoring crop patterns and health in large farms, checking for leaks and needed maintenance in far-off oil or gas pipelines or for monitoring areas where environmental conditions are hazardous for humans. There are even micro-robot bugs in development that could non-invasively enter the human body to deliver medicine directly to targeted areas and aid in surgery and bone growth.

But, of course, we know that the most likely use of this technology will be for more nefarious purposes: imagine a single robot bug delivering a neurotoxin to a human target? Or the proverbial fly on the wall being loaded with video and audio equipment? Then imagine that this isn’t imagination, but reality. Like the fly, the writing is on the wall.

The writer is a journalist.
Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2022