The Government wants to make microrobots that can control you. Or worse.
One of their earliest attempts was in the form of cyborgs. Not human-machine hybrids, like the DC Comics superhero cleverly named "Cyborg". Humans are clearly too big for the job. The Defense Department needed an animal small enough to travel undiscovered. These controllable robots needed to secretly conduct reconnaissance, collect intelligence, track targets -- and, yes, even deliver toxins.
In 2006, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) found the answer: insects. The Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) project attempted to embed control systems into insects and turn them into controllable micro-cyborgs.
Sounds like a bad science fiction movie. Except it worked.
Under the HI-MEMS project, DARPA was able to implant electrodes into a pupal that grew into a hornworm moth. When the moth grew to full size, the electrodes remained in its muscles. Military scientists were able to direct its flight, turning the hornworm moth into a cyborg drone. And there were other successes. With similar electrode implants, DARPA was able to modulate the leg motion of a darkling beetle and steer the flight of a flower beetle.
But by 2009, funding for the project ended without any cyborgs deployed in the field (to our knowledge). It's possible that even though the project had success, a modified insect was still too visible for the intended mission. What they really wanted was a micro robot that could be implanted in a target. And that's exactly where the medical community was excelling. Biologically implanted devices with electronic or remote control capabilities were advancing fast, becoming smaller, more sophisticated, and increasingly integrated into humans.
DARPA shifted focus, from remote control biological entities to implanted biological interfaces.
In 2014, DARPA launched the ElectRx program to implant microscope bioelectric devices in human targets. Once in place near nerve centers, the devices could modulate the autonomic nervous system. Were there positive, medical-related uses for such a device? Sure. But DARPA is part of the Pentagon and the massive military industrial complex. The bigger goal is always weaponization.
Unlike the earlier insect cyborgs, the ElectRx program worked on a micro scale. These were not bugs you could see with your naked eye. These were neuro-modulation devices the size of a nerve fiber. They were millimeters - or sub-millimeters - in scale. They were smaller than a grain of rice, and in some proposed concepts, "threadlike". By comparison, similar FDA approved devices like vagus nerve stimulaters were bigger and required surgery and a power pack to operate. The ElectRx devices were not only dramatically smaller, they required no elaborate surgery to reach their target. They could be injected using a needle or catheter. A victim might feel a pinch in a crowded room, and not realize they just received a micro device through microfluidic insertion that could control their nervous system. And the ElectRx had no power packs. The devices worked through inductive or ultrasound based power transfer. Communication with the device was wireless, via near-field radio. You'd never know who was controlling you.
It was a devastating concept. But again, it quietly disappeared. There was no formal announcement of its termination. After 2018, the DARPA ElectRx project simply concluded. Was it tried in the field? We'll never know. The fact is, medical technology kept improving at mind-bending speed. And DARPA moved on to catch the next wave.
In the last decade, things in the micro robot world have gotten wild. Science has uncovered astounding ways to get controllable implants into human targets: nano-bots powered by chemical reactions; tumor-targeting microbes delivering drugs directly in mice; ultrasound-controlled microbes that navigate small capillaries. We can officially make things so small, they become part of the human biological process.
In a study published this July (2025), researchers at Oxford University and the University of London have taken the idea of a micro robot to seemingly impossible extremes. If something the size of a nerve fiber seems small, the Oxford study, which introduces "Permanent Magnetic Droplet-Derived Micro-robots" or PMDMs, has far surpassed it. The micro-robots in this study were smaller than a human red blood cell.
For something that small, the PMDMs act extremely smart.
PMDMs work as groups, constantly assembling themselves into shapes, then separating as needed, to navigate through the human body. By changing form, the PMDMs can self-assemble into chains that mimic walking, crawling, swinging, and lateral movement. This ability to constantly reconfigure themselves allows the micro-robots to navigate complex biological environments, getting around obstacles, traveling over viscous surfaces, or slipping in narrow channels. We're way beyond the ElectRx implant now.
So what can these astoundingly small and complex micro robots actually do?
They can carry drugs and precisely control the dosage by the number of PMDMs "loaded with cargo", as the study describes it. In fact, the study demonstrated the ability of PMDMs to carry multiple drugs delivered on different timings. Combined with their unique ability to get anywhere in the human body, there's exciting potential for innovative medical treatments.
But they would also be effective for delivering harmful agents, or acting as biological tags, a kind of deep state spyware that could live undetected inside citizens. Imagine AI is employed to control a massive deployment of these micro-robots, stopping crowds of protesters with the flick of a switch, or shutting down the opposition from inside their own nerve center.
PMDMs represent a major technical leap for precision medicine. In the breakthrough study, the micro robots were controlled by electromagnetic coils outside the body, guiding them to their target.
Let's hope the person behind the controls is always a physician.