Puppy lovers look away now, the gene-fiddlers are at it again.
One of the hazards of being a journalist is that you are regularly exposed, by the very nature of the job, to some of the more confronting and downright terrifying aspects of human endeavour.
After a few years of this, it becomes difficult to be shocked by anything much at all… and then, kapow! Just when you think you’ve read it all, something comes along to actually make us gasp by its sheer appallingness.
Such as revelations this week that a US-based military start-up company is beavering away on a project to develop “genetically enhanced working dogs” for use on the battlefield.
Yes, you read that right.
A Texan company called “Warhound” has convinced investors to the tune of $US200 million that it’s a really good idea to fiddle about with canine DNA in order to create and clone a breed of dogs “optimised for combat”.
Any sane person would be forgiven for thinking this was merely the premise for a second-rate dystopian sci-fi movie rather than a serious business endeavour, but disturbingly we are now entering a version of reality where a for-profit combat-dog-breeding business is a happening thing.
According to the company, the dogs, which do not exist yet, will take on tasks that are “dangerous for humans or difficult for machines, such as bomb detection, searches, and other specialised operations”.
“For generations, working dogs have protected America’s police officers, firefighters, search-and-rescue teams, and warfighters. Warhound is developing technology to advance their health, safety, and performance, combining licensed technology from Colossal Biosciences and Anduril,” the company says on its website.
It is at this stage we usually rhetorically ask: what could possibly go wrong?
And the truth is, we don’t really know. But we are ready to bet London to a brick that something will, especially given the dodgy history of one of Warhound’s founders, named Palmer Luckey.
According to credible sources, including The Wall Street Journal, Luckey has been anything but with some of his previous projects, including supplying “autonomous suicide drones” to the Ukrainian military.
Not only did these drones rarely hit their targets, many of them failed to do the most fundamental task one asks of a drone: that is, fly. The product was so bad the Ukrainian military was forced to completely abandon their use back in 2024.
It’s the sort of track record that makes one wonder if Warhound’s investors, such as Sequoia Capital and the CIA’s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, are not perhaps barking mad.
If you see something that raises your hackles, be a good dog and share it with Holly@medicalrepublic.com.au.
