Monkeys take their robot-wielding powers international
It's been a while since we've heard from the folks at Duke University and their robot-controlling monkeys, but it seems that they've remained hard at work on their potentially perilous collaboration, with them recently showing off some of their latest tricks at the Neuroscience 2007 conference earlier this month. This time, they had the monkeys control a pair of robot legs through the use of some electrodes implanted in their brains which, apparently, went off without a hitch. But that's not all! The legs the monkeys were controlling just so happened to be located at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto, Japan, which the monkeys were linked to via the Internet. No word on what they plan to attempt next, although taking the robots and/or monkeys into space would seem to be the next logical step (at least to us).[Photo courtesy of NASA-JSC / Wikimedia Commons]
Filed under: Robots
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brodie @ Nov 27th 2007 1:35PM
Do they fling their own poo as well? I for one welcome our Robot-Monkey overlords...
Chuckles McGee @ Nov 27th 2007 5:18PM
Super Robot Monkey Team: Hyperforce Go!
L.Cyphre @ Nov 28th 2007 3:02AM
Robots don't poo, silly!
strider_mt2k @ Nov 27th 2007 1:46PM
So now we can send monkey-controlled robots into space?
...I mean wouldn't it make more sense to make a pair of arms bang those cymbals together remotely?
Matthew Hilario @ Nov 27th 2007 1:52PM
Transformers: Beast Wars RL.
Ryan Trevisol @ Nov 27th 2007 1:55PM
Internet connectivity via electrodes in the brain? Does that sound like the perfect situation to anyone else?
Falcon Punch @ Nov 27th 2007 6:59PM
Doom?
MashupMark.com @ Nov 27th 2007 2:07PM
Is that monkey wearing a sanitary towel? Eww! Bad monkey! Bad monkey!
m4ximus @ Nov 27th 2007 2:54PM
It appears to be some sort of large, chain mail sandwich. Possibly so the monkey can't order the robotic legs to pull ticks off it's own back? I'm just guessing here.
BradVT @ Nov 27th 2007 2:09PM
I wonder what a popup would feel like...
rzlmlchm009 @ Nov 27th 2007 5:34PM
It would probably give muscle spasms. Every time you get a pop up, you slap yourself. ;)
Balam Herrera @ Nov 27th 2007 3:09PM
Smart monkeys, like in Planet of the apes. We should be careful with this.
Scooter @ Nov 27th 2007 3:18PM
er, the monkeys could not see the legs and had no idea what was going on (presuming they were conscious). Was this what they signed up for?
Who is it that is strapping our genetic cousins onto operating tables for this nonsense?
markp @ Nov 27th 2007 4:08PM
This isn't nonsense to paraplegic patients that hope to one day walk again.
Karim @ Nov 27th 2007 3:37PM
No, LASERS, you fools!!! LASERS is the next step!!!
Soon, very soon, an unstoppable horde of robotic laser-equipped monkeys will be poised to unleash electric death at my command... and then they'll pay. They'll ALL pay!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAaaaa!!!
Steve Handjobs @ Nov 27th 2007 5:02PM
You know, if I ever DO become a parapalegic, the last thing I'm going to trust my cyber-legs to is some goddamned third-party contracted monkey sitting in a cubicle in Bangalore munching on bananas and playing "spank the robot".
GKA @ Nov 27th 2007 8:13PM
Umm .. surely the idea is that YOU would be the monkey (ie have electrodes controlling robotic legs)
lupinstel @ Nov 27th 2007 3:41PM
Its Mr. Peanut-monkey!!!
Matthew Hilario @ Nov 27th 2007 4:32PM
but can it do the robot?
Robo-Dave @ Nov 27th 2007 5:07PM
"hey, I look just like Mr. Peanut - umm, I mean, bow down to your robotic monkey overlords, puny humans!"
Dave Anderson @ Nov 27th 2007 5:59PM
Monkey Hate Clean!
Wwhat @ Nov 27th 2007 6:37PM
Anybody who ever read youtube comments knows they had monkeys connected to the internet for quite a while now.
robin hud @ Nov 27th 2007 9:03PM
monkey robots?? hmm
kaztm @ Jan 15th 2008 6:09PM
A picture of Kyoto end:
http://www.asahi.com/science/update/0115/OSK200801150077.html?ref=rss
(This website usually pulls out free articles after a couple of weeks.)