bucy wrote:

Many a mother has said, with a sigh, “If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?”

The answer, for cockroaches at least, may well be yes. Researchers using robotic roaches were able to persuade real cockroaches to do things that their instincts told them were not the best idea.

Brilliant!

Pzzt... man has been doing this for decades. It's called "marketing".

RE: Led by Robots, Roaches Abandon Instincts - New York Times