1.26.2006

Maybe if we ask nicely they'll take the Hippocratic oath...

A pleasant good day to all you talking monkeys.

As the second addition to The Best Intentions, I offer this morsel from the BBC concerning robotic surgical helpers. Developers have created tiny, highly maneuverable robots that can assist in laproscopy, etc. The idea being that the bots will enable surgeons to perform invasive procedures with less cutting and fumbling around inside the body.

Now, here's where I see it going awry. Remember the X-Files episode where someone implanted lots of nanobots into ADA Skinner's bloodstream? Remember how that rat bastard Krycek was able to control the nanobots with his PDA so that Skinner would writhe in pain as his veins turned all Star Trek Borg-ish? No? You stopped watching the show after Season 5? Tool.

If I have to spell it out for you: Tiny robot implanted into human. Tiny robot releases nanobots. Nanobots travel through bloodstream and lodge in brain of "host". (Think of the movie The Mummy when the scarab beetle burrows into that guy's brain.) Oh hell, you see where this is going. The robots don't even have to take us out--they can control us through the implants so that we take out each other. Or, at the very least, we become their lobotomized slaves.

Danger Rating: 7 (Unlike nanobot technology, this stuff is closer to being a reality, and once a human becomes a host to the bot, how do you easily tell if he's under robot control? On the plus side, the fact that the X-Files (and Star Trek) have been subtley warning folks of such a possiblity for over a decade, I'm sure there are people working on countermeasures. Still, this does not bode well for the future.)

Best of luck on your procedure...

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