bcifi

Beyond Cockroach RacIng by Brendan ZaChary AllIson

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“Ma’am, you’ve been cleared by the medical team. Please stand back from the disaster site. We’re still looking for other survivors.”

“Thank you again, officer. I didn’t think anyone would find me under all that concrete.”

“Actually, this brain-controlled roach discovered you.” He pointed down. The roach looked up.

“Really? You mean one of those roaches you guys use to search disaster sites?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ve had the technology to directly control cockroach brains for quite a while, but people just made them run races and make paintings and clean toilets and other silly stuff. Over a decade later, someone thought of putting a camera on them and using them to search through rubble. Not just because they’re smaller than us. They’re a lot cheaper than drones and nobody cares if they get damaged or irradiated or crushed.”

“You could use them for spying too.” She looked down. “And this is the same roach that saved me?”

“Yes.” She locked eyes with her rescuer, two compound eyes locking with two simple eyes in mutual incomprehension. “Seems like the little guy deserves a reward or something. No. Really.”

“I’m just laughing because we provide rewarding stimuli directly to the brain for their training and obedience. This little guy’s reward system is fried. Can’t really experience joy or pride anymore. Or really even learn. We’re gonna explant the brain interface tomorrow. But don’t worry, we’ll step on him as soon as it’s out, take him out of his misery. It’s a pretty painful process.”

“So at least nobody’s gonna step on him until then?”

“No.” The cop laughed again. “But that’s about the end of their roach rights. They don’t have cockroach lawyers, despite the jokes. Just wouldn’t fly. Speaking of, I gotta get back to the rescue.” The cop spread his 40-foot wings and flew away. The roach whined something about human rights.   

Author Commentary

This is unique in that it’s the first short-short Andy Weir didn’t like. He felt cheated by the twist at the end. I saw his point and made some revisions, but the core twist remains – “roaches” are a diminutive term for people.

I didn’t invent this idea. Rwandans called the Tutsis “cockroaches” to help justify genociding them. The Black Mirror episode “Men Against Fire” went further by calling some humans cockroaches and convincing soldiers that these “cockroaches” were in fact inhuman monsters. That episode also used evil brain interfaces to support that lie, like most Black Mirrors. The Fifth Element also had a scene with cockroach spying, although it’s not clear how the roach’s movement was controlled.

Realism

The core idea of taking over a cockroach nervous system to control basic movements was possible at least a decade ago. You can buy a kit to transform your cockroach into a “Roboroach” here. A project that used this approach was nominated for a BCI Research Award in 2015. I edited their book chapter about that project. The original version thanked the human participants and I required the authors to add an acknowledgment to the roach “participants” too.

For the first time, I felt bad for roaches. They have lives, hopes, dreams, directions other than “forward, left, right” as commanded by two humans. It’s not their fault they’re ugly.

That chapter does use cockroaches to run races. This story mentions other cockroach tasks like painting, cleaning, disaster response, and spying. These are also realistic. Painting and cleaning just require putting paint or cleaning fluid on a roach and directing it accordingly. Add a camera and you can search through rubble or spy.

Hope

If you’re a human, this short-short presents a pretty hopeless world. But the idea of using insects for disaster response is somewhat hopeful (again, if you’re a human).

Edit History

I wrote this in October 2024.

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