Discussion on:

Remote-controlled cockroaches to the rescue!

I can see the PETA people getting up in arms about enslaving these insects!

Seriously, though, they say the cockroach will be the only thing to survive nuclear war. Can you imagine a bunch of robot roaches wandering a devastated Earth?

Yep. You got it exactly right. It is enslavement of the cockroach.

What part of slavery do humans not understand?

But as you point out, its a good bet that within the next 100 years humans will become extinct as well as much of the rest of the higher order life organisms on earth. Nuclear war maybe. More likely it will be some sort of environmental seizure like poisoned fresh water or viral outbreak that does us in. Dinosaurs came and went. Maybe it is time for the current cadre of species to be reorganized for the next million years. Those human colonies on Mars and the Moon may be the last vestiges of humanity.

"although its curious as to why they dont just make robot versions of the cockroaches."
- Yes, I agree!

"We decided to use biobotic cockroaches in place of robots, as designing robots at that scale is very challenging"
- Nanotechnology has been around for a long time and there is plenty of innovation in miniaturised robotics if someone cares to look for it. I dare say the financial cost of researching and implementing the cockroach solution is at least, if not more, expensive as using robotics to achieve the same thing.

Bad day for science.