Wasn’t there a sci-fi anthology series (maybe Black Mirror?) that had an episode, where a high-tech wizard used robot bees as weapons (particularly nasty ones)?
If you ever hear new robot + useful task always assume it's a cover story for weapons delivery. Why do you think so many new robots are advertised as great for "search and rescue after a disaster"? Its one config file away from search and kill in a war zone.
Insect-bots are the penultimate search and kill. Also the penultimate mass kill. The ultimate would have to be nanobots if we can ever get to reliable swarms of them.
But it’s not the weapons that interest me so much as what people come up with as countermeasures. It’ll be fascinating to watch the next few years.
This robotic pollinator can barely even fly for 45 sec, they cannot scale it sufficiently they can just say minidrone but to even think about using it as an actual pollinator and the economics making sense is at the present far far away.
If you travel and see how people live in very large cities, especially in Asian countries, you'll find that interacting with any sort of nature is already optional for many people. These people won't notice. The indiscriminate pesticides will continue to flow, killing the natural bee/insect populations, with a slow transition to artificial pollination being an efficiency quirk of modern farming.
My mother used to work in social care for underprivileged city kids and she told me a story once where they took the kids to a farm. They were astonished that milk came from a cow.
I basically have to fly to the Canary Islands to see starlight.
"The envisioned indoor farm would grow fruits and vegetables inside a multilevel warehouse, maximizing yield per acre while minimizing environmental impacts through a controlled, closed-loop system."
Yeah, all our pollution and climate change is disrupting ecosystems.
Our only way to ensure survival on and off the planet is to mimic their actions (in this case pollination) to ensure that if we do manage to push more and more species to extinction we have options for being able to continue after they are gone.
Found this video on the MIT Robotics YouTube page of some of the robots Kevin Chen was working on from a year ago, but I couldn’t find any videos of the new on on YouTube.
> Is it possible to create a lawn weed killer (a broadleaf herbicide) that doesn't kill white dutch clover; because bees eat clover (and dandelions) and bees are essential?"
> [ Dandelion rubber is a sustainable alternative to microplastic tires ]
> Pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, have been investigated in relation to risks for bees such as Colony Collapse Disorder. A 2018 review by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides such as clothianidin represent a risk to wild bees and honeybees. [5][6] Neonicotinoids have been banned for all outdoor use in the entire European Union since 2018, but has a conditional approval in the U.S. and other parts of the world, where it is widely used. [7][8]
TIL dish soap kills wasps, yellow jackets, hornets nearly on contact.
Ordered it; can't wait till it arrives Saturday. FWIW, I find HN book recommendations/mentions a constant source of mostly arcane titles I'd never come across anywhere else. True for movies as well.
Wasn’t there a sci-fi anthology series (maybe Black Mirror?) that had an episode, where a high-tech wizard used robot bees as weapons (particularly nasty ones)?
Yep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hated_in_the_Nation
Also see the video of Veritasium of 5 hours ago where his team visits this lab and the technology is explained in more depth.
https://youtu.be/H6q6pYZ9Fho
dystopian... is there something wrong with actual insects keeping their day jobs?
If you ever hear new robot + useful task always assume it's a cover story for weapons delivery. Why do you think so many new robots are advertised as great for "search and rescue after a disaster"? Its one config file away from search and kill in a war zone.
Insect-bots are the penultimate search and kill. Also the penultimate mass kill. The ultimate would have to be nanobots if we can ever get to reliable swarms of them.
But it’s not the weapons that interest me so much as what people come up with as countermeasures. It’ll be fascinating to watch the next few years.
Imma invest in fly swatters
Economics scares me more.
Insects don't want to work anymore! Lazy bastards keep complaining about pollution and climate change and pesticides
This robotic pollinator can barely even fly for 45 sec, they cannot scale it sufficiently they can just say minidrone but to even think about using it as an actual pollinator and the economics making sense is at the present far far away.
Yes. They are being exterminated. The earthworms have almost dissapeared. The ants seem to still be able to survive though.
Insects are now free to do art...with subscription ai pushed by the big giant tech.
Maybe beekeeping is hard on Mars, so we need a new way to polinate the food supply?
Extinction, generally.
I'd rather have combat insects we can turn into pollinators once the ecosystem collapses than have nothing at all.
I think I'd rather just have nothing at all.
If you travel and see how people live in very large cities, especially in Asian countries, you'll find that interacting with any sort of nature is already optional for many people. These people won't notice. The indiscriminate pesticides will continue to flow, killing the natural bee/insect populations, with a slow transition to artificial pollination being an efficiency quirk of modern farming.
My mother used to work in social care for underprivileged city kids and she told me a story once where they took the kids to a farm. They were astonished that milk came from a cow.
I basically have to fly to the Canary Islands to see starlight.
One step closer to the Matrix
"The envisioned indoor farm would grow fruits and vegetables inside a multilevel warehouse, maximizing yield per acre while minimizing environmental impacts through a controlled, closed-loop system."
What about indoor vertical farming? Or disease killing pollinators? Or climate change doing the same?
Yeah, all our pollution and climate change is disrupting ecosystems.
Our only way to ensure survival on and off the planet is to mimic their actions (in this case pollination) to ensure that if we do manage to push more and more species to extinction we have options for being able to continue after they are gone.
Or we could plant some bushes, trees and wildflower meadows inbetween fields?
With no economic value ? Definitely no. /s
Would be curious how the "solenoid" works, does it pull in/out towards the center line and the wings flap somehow like on a hinge?
turns out it's not a solenoid it's more like a piece of rubber/flexing tube
Found this video on the MIT Robotics YouTube page of some of the robots Kevin Chen was working on from a year ago, but I couldn’t find any videos of the new on on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmrDK_w0Yog
The paper itself links to some videos but I haven’t looked at those yet.
Is there robo-beekeeping with or without humanoid robots?
/? Robo beekeeping: https://www.google.com/search?q=robo+beekeeping
Beekeeping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping
FWIU bees like clover (and dandelions are their spring food source), which we typically kill with broadleaf herbicide for lawncare.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158625 :
> Is it possible to create a lawn weed killer (a broadleaf herbicide) that doesn't kill white dutch clover; because bees eat clover (and dandelions) and bees are essential?"
> [ Dandelion rubber is a sustainable alternative to microplastic tires ]
Pesticide toxicity to bees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide_toxicity_to_bees :
> Pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, have been investigated in relation to risks for bees such as Colony Collapse Disorder. A 2018 review by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides such as clothianidin represent a risk to wild bees and honeybees. [5][6] Neonicotinoids have been banned for all outdoor use in the entire European Union since 2018, but has a conditional approval in the U.S. and other parts of the world, where it is widely used. [7][8]
TIL dish soap kills wasps, yellow jackets, hornets nearly on contact.
From https://savethebee.org/garden-weeds-bees-love/ :
> Many are beneficial, like dandelions, milkweed, clover, goldenrod and nettle, for bees and other pollinators.
NHK did a story a couple months ago on a company in Japan called HarvestX that focused on pollinating strawberries using an arm not a drone.
What they learned in their research was the more evenly and completely the pollen was spread, the more idyllic in shape the strawberry.
Right out of Ernst Junger's best book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bees (1957)
Ordered it; can't wait till it arrives Saturday. FWIW, I find HN book recommendations/mentions a constant source of mostly arcane titles I'd never come across anywhere else. True for movies as well.
Hope you enjoy it! It's a strange book and the bees in question are a small detail.
I found it presicient (though ultimately wrong) in terms of how it portrays what is essentially a big tech company.
So it has the same power deal-breaker as all of these things.
Obligatory Slaughterbots link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU
Huh, a hunter-seeker