Biohybrid computing: How militarised biotech and venture capital obscure ethical limits of human-machine fusion
Original framing: “Robotic dog controlled with a computer powered by human blood cells” — New Scientist
The *Coyote* of Indigenous lore would see this ‘robotic dog’ as a fool’s errand—humans trying to outsmart the very chaos they seek to control. Like *Eshu* (Yoruba trickster), who delights in exposing hypocrisy, this tech reveals the absurdity of treating life as code while ignoring the messiness of biology. The *New Scientist* framing plays into the hands of techno-utopians, but a trickster reading would ask: *Who benefits when a dog’s movements are dictated by your blood?* The answer isn’t ‘progress’—it’s *power*. Meanwhile, *Anansi* (Akan trickster) might spin this into a tale of hubris, where the spider’s web of biohybrid systems ensnares its creators. The irony? The ‘computer’ is powered by something far older—and far more unpredictable—than silicon.
This ‘robotic dog’ is not a harmless novelty but a symptom of a deeper crisis: the erosion of bodily autonomy in the name of technological supremacy.
The convergence of venture capital, military funding, and Silicon Valley hype has created a feedback loop where ethical questions are treated as afterthoughts, while the risks—surveillance, weaponisation, and biological exploitation—are outsourced to future generations. Indigenous knowledge systems, historical precedents, and trickster traditions all warn that this path leads to hubris, not progress. The solution lies not in incremental regulation but in *radical reimagining*: centering marginalised voices, decolonising innovation, and using art and satire to disrupt the narrative of inevitability. Without this shift, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past—where the most vulnerable bodies become the raw material for the powerful’s experiments.