Bugs: The Future of Artificial Intelligence?

Whoever thought the Insecticons from The Transformers would become a real thing?

What you’re looking at could be the beginnings of A.I., just in much much tinier size. Harvard Microbiotics Lab has developed something called the “Mobee” — a new kind of robot that can fly, as well as form a colony with other Mobees like it.

But what exactly is it going to be used for?Given the very insect-like wings as well as its overall size (a little less small than a quarter), you wouldn’t think that such a tiny little creature could be made of much. Yet a slew of different materials go into it, like Kapton (a kind of plastic), ceramic, brass, and titanium. Using a special sort of carbon-cured fiber enables designers and engineers to make the robot fold up, almost like a pop-up book — and dispense it with the touch of a button.

Previously these tiny things were made by humans, but the precision required was so minute it quickly grew apparent it’d be much more efficient to build other robots and let them build the bugs. As GeeksAreSexy points out, though, however Skynet-like this might seem — with bigger robots building smaller robots (and this whole thing evolving into a sort of mass-production type scenario) – as of now it’s still up to the human to do all the designing. Unless, of course, humans figure out a way for robots to become creative and ‘think up’ new ways to build the suckers.

Oddly, what’s not discussed or brought up is what these bug-bots are being designed for. Not to sound paranoid, but think about it: they already have fiber optic cameras that can fit in the tiniest of spaces.

Now with robots roughly the same size as a coin — could Harvard and the government be on the verge of some new kind of spy craft (not necessarily to use for a foreign country’s clandestine activities, but for its own citizens as well?)?

Or perhaps they’ll figure out a way to utilize the little things as combative drones. Remember Real Genius? Maybe they’re figuring out a new way to spy on Tehran as we speak…

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