This is an ethical question as well as a practical one. There are real ethical risks inherent in creating devices, or even independently mobile entities, that use their own store of learned intelligence and independent decision-making to interact with or make decisions that affect the conditions of human life. Consigning human well-being or liberties to a system that privileges artificial intelligence for the sake of expediency of one kind or another might reduce the range of free choice available to human individuals.

The real question implies a double ethical bind: on the one hand, is it fair for human beings to create artificially intelligent beings intended solely to serve human needs, on the other, is it reckless to create artificially intelligent beings that might not respect or have room for human emotional reality? The question involves innovations that seem almost totally improbable, almost science fiction, but which are not impossible or even unlikely to come to pass.

The inventor, scientist and entrepreneur, Ray Kurzweil —who has developed many of the intelligent machines that have filtered into the fabric of today’s technological universe (including flatbed scanners, voice recognition, and text-to-speech services)—, writes of the coming “age of spiritual machines”, which he calls “an inexorable emergence”.

He foresees that the most advanced computers will achieve “the memory capacity and computing speed of the human brain by around the year 2020″ (ASM 3). Because neural networks, computers designed to mimic human neurological circuitry and pattern retention, need to be reverse engineered from organs that have evolved over millions of years, artificial intelligence is necessarily less flexible, less agile, less “supple” than human intelligence.

It is widely thought among cognitive scientists that when artificial intelligence reaches not only the same level of complex circuitry, but the same level of simultaneous processing power, sensory awareness and mental agility, as the human brain, that emotional responses will emerge. At this point, the ethical questions regarding the “experience” of artificially intelligent beings come into play.

If such an event is in fact an “inexorable emergence”, then we have to also consider the correlative ethical question: how much ethical consideration can we expect from such entities as regarding human experience? Human beings waffle, we meditate, we take pains to make better choices, not just logical choices.

We answer an often imperceptible but ever-present ethical call, a summons demanding that we recognize the rights of the other. We are sometimes weak, and give in to temptation, but that is part of having individual liberties. We may pay a price for those mistakes, but they are ours to make. If we don’t have that liberty, if we don’t have the room to maneuver, intellectually, then we are not fully human: this is part of the modern ethic and fundamental to democracy.

What seems like a strictly philosophical, or even science-fiction-based question —Will artificial intelligence recognize and understand our human way of thinking and choosing, or will we be discounted by a system increasingly oriented toward logical data processing?— really does now need to be asked. Can we, for instance, put off the advent of self-reflective artificial intelligence, until we are sure to have programmed in emotional or at least human-deferential responses?

Ultimately, we cannot decide these points each on their own. We have to filter the entire scope of artificial intelligence research through the ethical and moral prism which asks: will it be good for people? will it respect human liberty? will human well-being be improved by this technology? Will the weak among us benefit, or be cast aside in an ever more technically-oriented built environment?

The result would be cyborg insects, living insects with technology integrated into their physical composition. The technology could have broad application, including “sniffing” applications in the search for toxins, concealed chemical or biological agents, hazmat detection, and even the search for survivors from natural disasters. A number of factors impede the timely locating of survivors buried in rubble after earthquakes or other major disasters.

Ben Epstein of OpCoast, who reportedly developed the idea after hearing insects modifying their sound in relation to each other’s calls, said researchers “could do this by adjusting the muscle tension or some other parameter that affects the sound-producing movements. The insect itself might not even notice the modulation”.

According to The New Scientist:

As well as a biochemical sensor and a device for modulating the wing muscles, the electronics package would contain an acoustic sensor designed to respond to the altered calls of other insects. This should ensure the “alarm” signal is passed quickly across the network and is ultimately picked up by ground-based transceivers.

OrthopterNets could vastly expand the information gathering and chemical detection capabilities of authorities seeking to solve pressing security problems, like chemical and bio-agent detection at major ports or the search for survivors buried under significant amounts of wreckage after a disaster. They might also mean a more conservative option for such tasks than self-replicating nano-bots, which many fear could escape human control.

In fact, OrthopterNets offer an important and instructive test for nano-technology, in that the engineering of such miniaturized circuits may benefit from the smallest-scale engineering available to human science. Using such decentralized, spontaneous communications systems to effectively restructure and optimize information search and extraction capabilities means a landmark moment in the development of hyper-convergent communications technologies.

The overlap between planned communications networking technologies and decentralized, organic and geologic patterns is a new frontier in communications and information technology, with the cyborg sniffer insects possibly marking only the first step in that direction. Artificial intelligence pioneer Ray Kurzweil predicts the human species will adopt cyborg capabilities to vastly enhance both survival-oriented and social functions, in the not-too-distant future.

The release of cyborg crickets into a disaster area could help authorities and rescue teams create real-time, evolving chemical maps, to detect no only the possible location of survivors, but of hazardous releases possibly caused by the disaster and even —where underlying materials are known— of unstable or shifting debris. Military uses might include minefield mapping and the location of weapons stores or mountain hideouts.

The New Scientist also reported last year that cyborg insects might be used as “discreet spies”. For instance:

THE next time a moth alights on your window sill, watch what you say. Sure, it may look like an innocent visitor, irresistibly drawn to the light in your room, but it could actually be a spy – one of a new generation of cyborg insects with implants wired into their nerves to allow remote control of their movement. Be warned, flesh-and-blood bugs may soon live up to their name.

That article also notes that researchers have developed cyborg remote-control capabilities for “rats, pigeons and even sharks”. The technologies could be used for eavesdropping and other covert detection tasks. The first cyborg rat, achieved by researchers in 2002, was directed with a combination of contact and reward stimuli to specialized regions of its brain, then “freed” to use its own sniffing instincts to detect the presence of explosives in a targeted location.

The Hot Spring Network (TheHotSpring.net) is a project of Casavaria Publishing, aiming to connect ‘idea people’ across the world. You can use The Hot Spring Network to connect with friends or to seek out people in your field or in a field of interest, to post links or share ideas, publish your own blog posts or share research, media or information generally.

The Hot Spring Network is linked to the publication The Hot Spring (TheHotSpring.com), which aims to produce meaningful analysis of bold new ideas in paradigm-shift fields of research, including media hyper-convergence, advanced ecology, economics, food supply, human health, crisis policy, cutting-edge publishing technologies.

We aim to not only function as a social network across disciplines, borders and interests, but also to formulate a revolutionary new kind of intellectual property preserve. Working from the philosophy of the Creative Commons —which allows creative people to share their work through flexible licensing choices—, we hope to establish a new standard whereby great ideas can be pooled into one productive research base in which all material contributors will share a part.

Check our ‘Rights‘ page periodically for updates on the progress of this project and information about how you can use The Hot Spring Network to distribute your ideas, pool your work with that of others and work toward forging the solutions we all need in order to shape a better future.

For now, feel free to message, blog and share links, expand your connections on the Network, invite friends, join groups and discussions, and help us turn The Hot Spring Network into a vibrant community of information and debate. If you have any questions or would like provide input about how you think the site and its service could be improved, please contact us at thehotspring@casavaria.com or message the Network Director here.