Meet the battle-ready cyborg cockroaches that humans can control for SPY missions
Technology is changing, and therefore, so is warfare.
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It might feel plucked out of science fiction, but German military tech company SWARM Biotactics is working on cyborg cockroaches that can spy behind enemy lines.
The insects - hailed for being remarkably durable - are equipped with miniature backpacks fitted with cameras and other tools to gather data on enemies in real time.
Human operators will be able to control them by zapping their tiny brains with electrical pulses.
Each zap allows humans to control the insects' movements remotely, meaning they don't have to enter hostile environments themselves in order to gather information.
"Our bio-robots - based on living insects - are equipped with neural stimulation, sensors, and secure communication modules," Swarm Biotactic's CEO Stefan Wilhelm told Reuters.
"They can be steered individually or operate autonomously in swarms."
For example, a human-controlled spy cockroach could go on secret spy missions to expose information about enemy positions.
The bio-robotic startup secured €10 million in seed funding last month that will help get its bugs onto the battlefield.
"Conventional systems fail where control is needed most - denied zones, collapsed infrastructure, politically complex terrain," said Wilhelm.
"SWARM is the first company building an entirely new category of robotics: biologically integrated, AI-enabled, and mass-deployable systems for persistent intelligence in places no drone or ground robot can reach.
Watch terrifying 'terminator' robot dogs with AI-targeted rifles being tested by US Marines
"This funding moves us from deep tech to deployment - delivering the infrastructure democracies need to operate more smartly, more safely, and with total tactical awareness.'
But SWARM aren't the only ones trying to bio-hack insects.
A team of scientists in China claimed they have created the world's lightest mind control device for bees.
While the device is strapped to a bee's back, three needles are pierced into the bee's brain.
Operators can then send electronic pulses into the bee's brain and command it to fly in whichever direction they want.
During tests, published in the Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering earlier this month, the bees obeyed their operator's commands with 90 per cent accuracy.
Beyond warfare, mind-controlled bugs could be used to help disaster relief operations.
UKRAINE WAR SHIFT
Wilhelm believes Europe is entering a decade where "access, autonomy, and resilience define geopolitical advantage".
And Russia's invasion of Ukraine seemed to spark that shift, dozens of sources from across business, investment and government told Reuters.
Sven Weizenegger, who heads up the Cyber Innovation Hub - the tech accelerator for the German armed forces, said the war in Ukraine removed a stigma towards working in the defence sector.
"Germany has developed a whole new openness towards the issue of security since the invasion," he told the outlet.
The country has been shaped by the trauma of Nazi militarism and a strong post-war pacifist ethos that has been reflected in its relatively small and cautious defence sector, Reuters noted.
But Germany plans to nearly triple its regular defence budget to around €162 billion ($175 billion) per year by 2029.
Much of that money will go into reinventing the nature of warfare, Reuters reported, citing sources.
Sources also claimed that Chancellor Friedrich Merz sees artificial intelligence (AI) and start-up technology as key to its defence plans.
The German leader is reportedly slashing red tape to connect startups directly to its military.
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Daily Mail
3 hours ago
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It should not be possible for an app to generate a sexual image of a child, whether or not that was its designed intent. The technology used by these tools to create sexually explicit images is complex. It is designed to distort reality, to fixate and fascinate the user – and it confronts children with concepts they cannot yet understand. I should not have to tell the government to bring in protections for children to stop these building blocks from being arranged in this way. Posts on LinkedIn have even appeared promoting the 'best' nudifying AI tools available I welcome the move to criminalise individuals for creating child sexual abuse image generators but urge the government to move the tools that would allow predators to create sexually explicit deepfake images out of reach altogether. To do this, I have asked the government to require technology companies who provide opensource AI models – the building blocks of AI tools – to test their products for their capacity to be used for illegal and harmful activity. These are all things children have told me they want. They will help stop sexual imagery involving children becoming normalised. And they will make a significant effort in meeting the government's admirable mission to halve violence against women and girls, who are almost exclusively the subjects of these sexual deepfakes. Harms to children online are not inevitable. We cannot shrug our shoulders in defeat and claim it's impossible to remove the risks from evolving technology. We cannot dismiss it this growing online threat as a 'classroom problem' – because evidence from my survey of school and college leaders shows that the vast majority already restrict phone use: 90% of secondary schools and 99.8% of primary schools. Yet, despite those restrictions, in the same survey of around 19,000 school leaders, they told me online safety is among the most pressing issue facing children in their communities. For them, it is children's access to screens in the hours outside of school that worries them the most. Education is only part of the solution. The challenge begins at home. We must not outsource parenting to our schools and teachers. As parents it can feel overwhelming to try and navigate the same technology as our children. How do we enforce boundaries on things that move too quickly for us to follow? But that's exactly what children have told me they want from their parents: limitations, rules and protection from falling down a rabbit hole of scrolling. Two years ago, I brought together teenagers and young adults to ask, if they could turn back the clock, what advice they wished they had been given before owning a phone. Invariably those 16-21-year-olds agreed they had all been given a phone too young. They also told me they wished their parents had talked to them about the things they saw online – not just as a one off, but regularly, openly, and without stigma. Later this year I'll be repeating that piece of work to produce new guidance for parents – because they deserve to feel confident setting boundaries on phone use, even when it's far outside their comfort zone. I want them to feel empowered to make decisions for their own families, whether that's not allowing their child to have an internet-enabled phone too young, enforcing screen-time limits while at home, or insisting on keeping phones downstairs and out of bedrooms overnight. Parents also deserve to be confident that the companies behind the technology on our children's screens are playing their part. Just last month, new regulations by Ofcom came into force, through the Online Safety Act, that will mean tech companies must now to identify and tackle the risks to children on their platforms – or face consequences. This is long overdue, because for too long tech developers have been allowed to turn a blind eye to the risks to young users on their platforms – even as children tell them what they are seeing. If these regulations are to remain effective and fit for the future, they have to keep pace with emerging technology – nothing can be too hard to tackle. The government has the opportunity to bring in AI product testing against illegal and harmful activity in the AI Bill, which I urge the government to introduce in the coming parliamentary session. It will rightly make technology companies responsible for their tools being used for illegal purposes. We owe it to our children, and the generations of children to come, to stop these harms in their tracks. Nudifying apps must never be accepted as just another restriction placed on our children's freedom, or one more risk to their mental wellbeing. They have no value in a society where we value the safety and sanctity of childhood or family life.
