No mind control for cockroaches, please!

I find something vaugely unsettling in this report from Science:

Robotics offer new possibilities for studying and modulating animal behavior. Halloy et al. (p. 1155; see the news story by Pennisi) observed collective decision-making by mixed groups of cockroaches and autonomous minirobots. The robots, similar in size (though not in shape) to the cockroaches, were coated in a blend of cuticular hydrocarbons that mimic the natural cockroach cuticle. The robots and the insects made shared decisions regarding choice of shelter, and the robots could modulate the collective decision-making process and produce a behavior pattern--choice of an inappropriate shelter--not observed in groups of cockroaches alone. Thus, a small number of robots can change the global pattern by altering feedbacks between individuals in the system.
CREDIT: ULB AND EPFL

I don't like to think about the implications of this. Will there one day be cockroach armies, under the control of minirobots? I shudder to think! Literaly shudder.

DOn't know if anyone out there knows this story - but I once called my mom, in California, from my apartment in Atlanta, one evening because I was FREAKING out about a cockroach in my bedroom. (In my defense, it was hanging out on the ceiling over my bed and wouldn't move.) My mom was reasonable in her response - "There's nothing I can do, I'm 3000 miles away." Yeah, thanks. True, but not helpful to me freaking out in Atlanta. I think I ended up vacumming up the thing and barely sleeping that night. Or maybe I called my friend Elizabeth or Allison, both of whom have rescued me from cockroaches in the past.

ICK.