As technology becomes more sophisticated it becomes less necessary to rely solely on humans for intelligence gathering. The government is now, and has been, spending a lot of money and human resources on equipping bugs with cameras for the purpose of spying on enemies of the state.
A flying insect is, in many ways, superior to a human when it comes to intelligence gathering. For example, a bug cannot defect to the enemies side. However, it is not the bugs that will be doing the reporting, rather the technology that is mounted onto their minute bodies will do the reporting.
The researchers heading such experiments are focused on the fact that not all of an insect’s energy is expended on movement, but much of the energy that insects gather from food is wasted. This wasted energy could be put to good use by letting it power tiny cameras or sound recording equipment attached to their bodies.
There are already academic institutions working on this technology, but the military has also taken an interest. So far the technology is being used as a method of detecting victims of earthquakes or other disasters in which a person or persons are trapped under a pile of otherwise inaccessible rubble. But it may not be too long before enemies of the USA find themselves with a robot-pest problem.
Is it possible that this technology is already in use?
