One step away from controlling the minds of Humans....
The ethical question is do the benefits outwiegh the potential use of this science on higher orders of animals... even humans???

Remote-control rats raise ethical issues for humans
By Edie Lau -- Bee Science Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, May 2, 2002
The rats in John Chapin's lab climb ladders, walk on elevated tracks, systematically explore rubble piles and -- most tellingly -- hang around open spaces in daylight, acting against their natural instincts.

A remote control tells them what to do.

In a biological twist on artificial intelligence, Chapin and colleagues at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center have created what they call robotic rats -- rats with brain implants that can be guided by a person via electronic impulses.

The research was designed to help the scientists develop robotic prosthetic limbs for paralyzed people, but the "roborats" work so well that the scientists now want to put such animals to use -- in land-mine detection, perhaps, or as urban search-and-rescue crews.

"They would have GPS (Global Positioning System devices); they'd have a video camera and a microphone so you could establish a communications link (with victims)," Chapin said. "That would be cool."

"Cool" is not a universal reaction.

The creation of robotic rats, which is described today in the journal Nature, is the kind of odd, futuristic development that some find inspiring and others find creepy. Ethically, it's definitely provocative.

"It does raise troubling issues about mind control in general," said Roberta Springer Loewy, a bioethicist at the University of California, Davis.

"Can this be utilized for being able to create robotic humans?" she said. "If it can be done with rats, it can certainly be done with higher animals."

Kevin Warwick already has put an implant into himself, albeit not his brain.

A professor of cybernetics at Reading University in England, Warwick placed an electrode into his wrist that communicates with a computer to perform jobs such as turning on lights or sending e-mail.

Warwick called Chapin's work "inspiring."

Besides helping injured people, Warwick is fascinated by futuristic applications, too. Soon, his wife will be implanted with an electrode.

"I want to see what the possibilities are for humans to communicate by means of thinking to each other," he said.

Chapin, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, welcomes an ethical debate on such implants.

"It's something that needs to be discussed," he said.

Chapin and his colleagues have a $1 million, four-year grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- a military research arm -- for spinal cord research.

Earlier in their work, the scientists demonstrated that a rat could use its brain activity to control a robot arm. Next, they wanted to give the user of the arm -- ultimately, a paralyzed person -- a "feel" for what the arm did.

Chapin described the goal this way: "You're paralyzed from the neck down, you can't feel your body. You're using your brain activity to control the (robotic) arm to reach out to grasp a glass of water. There is some sort of transmitter between (the brain and prosthetic arm). You reach out to grasp the glass of water, but you can't feel it. Wouldn't it be nice if you could use some sort of electronic device to bring that feeling back into your brain?"

With the rats, the team implanted two electrodes into the somatosensory cortex, the part of the brain that corresponds to feeling on various parts of the body. One electrode stimulated whiskers on the right side. The other electrode stimulated whiskers on the left.

But how would they know if the rat felt something? To train the rats to respond in a revealing way, the researchers implanted a third electrode, this one into the medial forebrain bundle. That brain part is activated in experiences of pleasure or reward -- eating, having sex, taking certain drugs, etc.

The half-pound rats wear 1- to 2-ounce backpacks wired to the electrodes through ports in their skulls; the backpacks deliver light electronic stimuli. The electronics can be controlled from 1,640 feet away.

The researchers trained the rats to turn right when their right whiskers were stimulated, and left when the left whiskers were stimulated, by stimulating their reward centers when the rats performed as desired.

Chapin said the rats aren't so much controlled as encouraged.

"The rat theoretically has a choice," he said. "If they want a reward, they go the right direction. It's not being driven by aversive shock."

The rats become tame, even affectionate, he said, and seem to like the exercise.

"When they're not doing it, and you're in the lab, sometimes we let them walk around on the floor. They look up at you with these dark eyes as if to say, 'Could we do more of that?' "

Alan Berger doesn't buy a bit of it.

Executive director of the Animal Protection Institute, an animal-rights organization based in Sacramento, Berger called the whole thing "creepy."

Berger said the robotic rat experiment is worse than the usual biomedical research uses of rodents because it's not about curing catastrophic diseases.

"It seems to me to border on something that may not necessarily be useful," he said.

Robin Murphy, a computer science professor at the University of South Florida and director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, agreed.

Murphy helped lead a pioneering use of robots in the search-and-rescue effort at the World Trade Center last fall. She said such an environment is deadly for live animals.

"One of the reasons we use robots is to do things that people or animals physically can't. ... We actually melted one of our robots," she said.

Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he thinks the more common adverse reaction to the roborat experiment will be the fear of the implications for people.

"We see a rat with a thing on its head and a backpack on their back with wires sticking out, and we think, 'There but for a bigger backpack and bigger electrode go I.' "

Interesting is it not? But apart from mind control, the mind-machine interface has more functions. Imagine controlling all your house applicances with mere thought... You wake up in the morning, you think "Hmm, dark, gotta turn on the light..." and PLING, on goes the light. Same with typing large emails and stuff... Mind-machine interface will make typing obsolete... Speech also, even.

I'm still curious as to how far this connection will go. I could speculate, as some people see the mind as the seat of the soul, that this interface, if a bidirectional one and fast enough, will be able to create a network of interconnected minds... Sorta like the internet, but then with concious hosts. A concept I have discussed with a few people, who seemed to be afraid of the impact. I however, am not... A network of minds is infinitely more intelligent then any single human could ever be.

as long as that network is free and not controlled by anyone. How safe would you feel connecting your brain up to a collective? I want freedom and do not want to be a part of some 'brain club'.

Isn't that what you are doing now, Tor? By engaging in conversation on this forum, you engage in an exchange of thought. A direct connection between minds allows for a more efficient transfer... Little more.

yeah of which I have control over and what I say here may not be entirely what I'm thinking.

Also if you're using this forum as a comparison - in the thread 'am i anti american' it boiled down to a slanging match between the US and europe - hardly great minds or an improvement on intellect there lol.

What I'm saying is that I would not connect my brain up to anyone elses. How would you know that you are in total control of your thoughts or that subliminal messages aren't being directed towards you.

If we lived in a world of trust and honour perhaps it would work but would you trust anyone out there with access to your mind?

I'm not sure.....

I agree a network of morons is a network of morons....sellecting the right people for a think-tank ould be the key. They'd also have to put in someone who could act as a refereee. maybe someone who was quite bright, very forcefull but had no formal scietific trianing so that they could make decisions base don the most rational choice without letting any one person rule the roost and railroad their ideas into the collective.

I like the idea....

If we assume that every technological advance is going to be to our ultimate detriment then we may as well become ludites and destroy all machines and return to the land and as nobody would read this post in accordiance with set plan this whole line becomes rather moot.

besides, if they wanted to we'd already be controlled by way of subliminal suggestion on televisions.

Neon

There are some who would argue that what you say is already the case.

I remember a program a few years ago where they had some US General saying that they don't invade countries in the normal way anymore - instead they use television. Put our (US) programs into a country gets the populace round to our way of thinking.

Pretty scary stuff. Consider that most of your opinions are actually somebody elses you've heard on tv. I think we'd all like to believe we have our own opinions but how many can we truly say are ours and not ones marketed by our own media. You can have an opinion but an opinion without all the facts is worthless...

Unplug the drug!


Hollywood is a powerfull propaganda machine. Look at Dr. Pavlov's conditioned responce experiments and then consider that the average person spends four hours a day viewing television.

got anything I can read on pavlov? I did a search on google and got pavlov the dog lol.

I spend an average of about 4 hours a week watching tv. Most of it is crap/boring and all the stuff i would normally watch I miss as I don't watch tv lol.

unplug the drug, yeah, but you have to keep an eye on the enemy, so to speak, while remaining critical of what you're viewing.
so much of mass media entertainment is little more than a pitch to sell(instill, instruct)consumer culture values...such good pod people we are.
as far as a network of minds(homo gestalt?)...sounds rather suspect to me. ever read theodore sturgeon's MORE THAN HUMAN?


"long live the new flesh" ~` VIDEODROME

I bet you are drinking a mass consumed beverage while posting... heheh

not i.

and i usually only smoke at night
...usually.



"BLACK SABBATH RUINED MY LIFE"

MTV=Mind control. Mainstream media=mind control.

Were we talking about that.... dumbass.... if I had wanted this thread to be about subliminal control issues i would have mentioned that in my first post..... fucking idiot....

Hey Dyshade you get out of bed on the wrong foot this morning? Perhaps you should state what you want people to talk about in your threads. Maybe for the ones that stray off subject you could go and beat them.

I've a baseball bat you can borrow :

*skims first article*

*shudders*

Only if it is a louisville slugger.... I like those... they make a most hearty cracking noise when hitting skulls....

The main point to the thread was Mind Control through the use of Radio Control by pleasure and pain conditioners.... not subliminal mind control which is a very different subject all together.... and most often it is merely suggestive selling.....

want me to put a big nail through it for maximum damage lol?

Yeah it is annoying when the subject strays but it's gonna happen. I don't think there's a thread out there that hasn't strayed off subject.

Going on about the pleasure/pain control - is this what's in store for our future generations?

'tow the line and you get pleasure - step outta place and you get pain'

I think the whole chip thing is disgusting. I lost a job cos I refused a drug test. Well i did the piss test but wouldn't have the blood test as no company is gonna hurt me for something a minority do. Btw I do smoke and this wasn't a reason for not taking the test (they are in fact easy to get around). For the chip - no way!!

But I can't stop them. People here may say they've signed a death warrnet if they try it on themselves - I say try holding off 4 burley coppers whilst they stick ya. It ain't gonna happen.

Fight it now so It doesn't start in the future.