This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
The intent maybe good but what is Google getting out of it? They are not saints definately.
gSquito - Instead of drinking your blood, they will steal your data
The fact that Google is behind it is what makes it sketchy. I bet those mosquitoes are carrying 5G.
Also, has anybody thought to ask why Google has 32 million mosquitoes on hand?
Also, has anybody thought to ask why Google has 32 million mosquitoes on hand?
Probably the spawn of Sundar Pichai
The fact that Google is behind it is what makes it sketchy. I bet those mosquitoes are carrying 5G.
Truth. Fuck Google, fascist Genocide supporting oligarchs.
Their motives are not pure, for sure. But this program will save many lives, even if its strategic value to Google is long term self benefit.
Also, has anybody thought to ask why Google has 32 million mosquitoes on hand?
This isn't new, releasing infertile male mosquitoes to reduce the population is a proven technique, and will genuinely reduce disease risk, so the public-health value is real. Why Google has them on hand? Well, they bought the company that started the program (Verily) and took it over, they have a lot of interest in the health and science sectors, not just AI and search/ads.
The real concern is that public health, ecological management, and climate adaptation are collective needs, but they are increasingly being handled through private corporate platforms. Debug can look humanitarian while also expanding Google’s role in governing public infrastructure, deciding how data is collected, how interventions are deployed, who gets served first, and who remains dependent on corporate technology.
Google is using a real public-health problem to develop a scalable bio-automation platform, gain regulatory and municipal trust, strengthen its public image, and position itself inside future public-health and climate-adaptation infrastructure.
They see huge profits and monopoly on technology that will likely become essential to our survival in the future, as they accelerate that likelihood with their reckless environmentally devastating technologies today. They'll make us pay to use their technology to control pests that threaten our food supply. This isn't charity, it's long term strategic planning.
As for the immediate need, we're gonna need this technology for the devastating future that's coming, and since our corporate controlled government aren't doing it themselves, it might be good to let it happen through evil corporations today, and hopefully when shit gets bad enough people will finally revolt and take ownership of it back to society, where it belongs. If not, we'll continue to be slaves to corporations, but at least half the population won't starve or die of mosquito spread diseases.
I don't like that Google is doing it, and you're absolutely right not to trust their stated motives, and no doubt they're thinking of all possible evil applications of the technology in the future.
They have a lot of money from all that data they collect
This will end well
I'm in favor of anything that gets us closer to making mosquitos extinct. Either the ecosystem adapts, or it's now on an only-slightly-steeper nose dive toward total collapse than it is anyway with the amount of non-mosquito related damage we're causing every day.
Like, if we're fucked anyway, let's be fucked in the relative comfort of a world without mosquitos!
Iirc they've done several impact studies and determined that wiping out the species that bites humans wouldn't have a significant impact.
Don't tell Mr Bubbles. He's relying on that cover story.
another one will easily take its place since there is more than 1 that can trasmit certain viruses, aedis ageypti is the one that transmits the most viruses. malaria usually only spread by anopholes mosquitoes.
Only two species really, the rest are important pollinators. But big fuck A. Ægypti
Sterile mosquitoes. Which is actually a highly effective strategy for lowering mosquito populations. Also, only the females bite you - the male mosquito’s entire purpose in life, with no exaggeration, is to bang and then die.
........am I a male mosquito? I don't bite. I bang, and......well one day I'll die.
No, you are simply a car.
Well I am gassy.
Vroom vroom
We sure? Do we want to trust Google with this? Why is Google involved at all. Feel a conspiracy with this.
Cynicism about anything evil corp does is well founded, but this has actually has a solid basis.
I assume they do it for reputation-washing -> look at this one good thing we do and ignore all the other evil stuff
Google is involved in all kinds of things, this is one of hundreds of "surprising" projects they have running.
Yes, I hate mosquitoes, but they’re a pretty significant part of the ecosystem. But Google is well known for their measured and thoughtful approach, and especially long-term planning, so I’m sure it’s going to be just fine.
I'll look forward to hearing that the program has been cancelled for no apparent reason in a couple of years after successfully delivering all of its objectives
They are targeting the major disease carrying species, so it's not like we will be getting rid of all the pests - and their benefits - the way aerial poision spraying does.
Testing in Singapore reduced disease burden by 70-80% after the release, that's significant improvement in quality of life - I know people who contracted West Nile, it's not fun.
california doesnt seem to have an endemic mosquito borne disease problem, florida does though.
We have west nile and many others. Its very bad. Theres a metric ton of them bugs here.
Source: i live here.
california doesnt seem to have an endemic mosquito borne disease problem, florida does though.
I'm not American so excuse my ignorance, but I was under the impression that Florida was full of swamps and low lying (fresh-ish) water whereas California was significantly drier, with most water in rivers.
The former is an ideal breeding ground for mosquitos (still or stagnant fresh or brackish water), whereas running water and oceans are extremely poor for mosquito breeding.
Seems pretty clear why Florida (and Mississipi etc) have a bigger mosquito problem to me - what am I missing ?
You are quite correct in your current impression of the state differences. My backyard in my previous Florida home bordered on a protected watershed area. I referred to it as Dagobah, and you essentially couldn't go in the backyard for a good part of the year without getting swarmed.
50/50 this has been in the works for a long time by many trust worthy people and companies well before Google. How Google got their dick in this? Who the hell knows. They also wanted to do the same in New Zealand for rats. They are invasive and have decimated the local bird population by eating eggs. It almost went ahead until some dumbfuck indigenous big chief was all like "nature finds a way" well now, birds are dead and rats are everywhere. Guess nature got fucking lost.
“nature finds a way"
Yeah, nature's way is: the rats win. That's how we're here and the Neanderthals aren't.
What? The rats fucked the birds until the species merged?
'Cause that's what happened between us and the Neanderthals.
That's not the only factor in the die-out of the Neanderthals. Another is thought to be a massive reduction of the population and geographical constriction during the ice age, isolated communities afterwards resulting in little genetic variation, and thereby high susceptibility to disease.
Was this around the Waikaremoana area, by any chance?
No clue sorry. I haven't looked into it in some time.
There is literally no option to endanger mosquito species which act as vectors for human disease while people, agriculture, and wild mammal populations exist. This is local suppression in municipal areas.
32 million would be like fighting a wildfire with a spraybottle if your goal was eradication.
Eradicating disease is an option though as we CAN control transmission.
I'm honestly ok with the ecosystem risk to eliminate the specific species that bite humans. Other species will likely fill the niche they have as food, etc. Mosquitoes are literally the deadliest animals, killing way more people than even other people.
What exactly is the risk to the ecosystem? Since you're okay with it, you should know what it is, right?
The ecosystem is pretty important for things like us having food.
The ecosystem risk is that a reduction in A. Aegpyti population causes a collapse of the insectivores that depend on consuming it and thus starve, with a knock on effect up the food chain.
While this may happen, a) predation is not currently any real constraint on the population, and b) other insects have been shown to be able to take up part of the niche and c) this already an ecosystem which been rebalanced - they are not naturally occurring in the US they have travelled over with humans
Google is thoroughly evil, and I upvoted the cynical parent comment, but on this one subject they are on the right side of the ledger.
Other non disease carrying mosquitos can take over the ecological niche for a net benefit to humanity.
Thank you for the info! I'm still hesitant about unknown consequences, but I'm far from an expert in that area.
How about this. I would rather the entire ecosystem including you and I collapse than keep putting up with the little vampires. For such a snarky prick I don’t see with any answers
Lol! The point of asking questions is to learn, not to give answers.
And I did learn from at least one or two other interesting answers!
NOT the person you're replying to.
You, rightly imnsho, got a snarky response because you weren't just asking a question.
This (below) is fine
What exactly is the risk to the ecosystem?
This (below) earned you the snark.
Since you're okay with it, you should know what it is, right?
That reads very clearly as "I don't think you know shit, prove it, and unless you do, you don't have a right to an opinion"
You didn't know whether OP did or did not have a handle on the ecological impact. Either stop at the first bit, or word the second less aggressively.
Feedback is being provided here because you are taking an overt "I was just asking a question why are you snarking stance". If that's fake then I'll just block and move on.
I know that I was being snarky and not "just asking a question", because "I don't care about consequences the ecosystem" is a silly stance to take.
It's likely they were making a joke, so yeah, my aggression was probably too heavy in retrospect.
Didn't this already happen once, and it turned out that sterile mosquitoes aren't as sterile as they thought? I might (and hope to) be misremembering.
and the wild species, breed faster than normal to compensate too.
Not to worry, they're using AI to sort the mosquitoes, so they totally won't accidentally release a bunch of super-females with extra disease carrying capacity and ultra-fecundity, because they specifically told the AI not to do that...
Trust me, bro.
-Google, probably
Surprised they're asking.
Did anyone check with Minnesota first??
